


Miracle Mile, Where Does it Lead to?

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: True Love or Something [37]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Foster Care, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Return of the interns!, kid!Acxa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 00:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13513188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: “You okay, babe?”Keith blinks and glances up at him, “There was a kid in my self-defense class today.”“Girl, eleven-ish dark hair, kind of intense, doesn’t talk to anyone?”“She wasn’t disruptive or anything. Had more focus and control than most of the class.”“She’s really contained. We’re a little concerned. But every time anyone talks to her she spooks and disappears. Coran says she signed up for my after school activities but she doesn’t actually do any of them. She just hides in a corner and reads.”Keith’s face creases thoughtfully, a wry smile turning up the corner of his mouth, “Sounds like me as a kid.”Acxa is an 'eleven-year-old-emphasis-on-the-old-please' foster kid who's started hanging around the community center. Keith and Lance are the idiot adults looking out for her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT YOU BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!
> 
> Hello again! I'm back (sort of) with chapter one of a new multi chap for this series. Just a head's up, with my current schedule, updates will probably be infrequent and not nearly as crazy long as this first chapter. That is not a sign I've abandoned this story, it just means my real life is real busy. 
> 
> This fic has been in the works for a while. I've been planning for it to happen for months, the beginning just didn't come together for me until now. I have tinkered with the ages of the characters here - Acxa is 11, Lotor and Ezor are around the same age as Klance, etc. 
> 
> Warning, the foster system and past questionable parenting are discussed, but not to any extremes. This fic's content is comparable to the rest of the series. Any inaccuracies depicting the foster system are accidental.

**Chapter 1**

            No one ever talks about how cool blood looks like on snow.

It’s her own blood, dripping from where the big kids caught her face with their fists, drip-drip-drop falling in delicate little globubles from the tip of her nose to dot the snow with little scarlet pebbles. It’s cold outside, clouds of steam bloom from her lips and the drops of blood freeze when they hit the ground instead of blossoming outward the way they normally would. A little constellation of crimson spheres arranged against a frosty backdrop.

She doesn’t want to go home.

She doesn’t know these new foster parents yet and they don’t know her, and she doesn’t think they really want to and that’s fine. She doesn’t want to know them either. But she hasn’t quite broken them in well enough yet for them to be able to comfortable each other yet. If they see her nose and bloody face they’ll ask questions and try to be concerned or worse, actually will be concerned and Acxa’s not up to weathering the emotional tizzy they’ll work themselves into. She’s eleven years old but she feels the _old_ in that statement more than the _eleven_ part.

She hitches her backpack up her shoulder and wonders if there’s a coffee shop around that’ll sell her a cup of drip coffee for the dollar and change she has in her pocket.

            A quick step out of the alley the big kids had cornered her in reveals a street, too new to be ‘familiar’ yet but not quite foreign. Damn, no coffee shops, at least none that looked like they catered to the bloody preteen customer. But just up the street…

            She doesn’t know why she walks to the community center, really. She tries on reasons: her backpack is heavy (it is), her face hurts (it does), she’s tired and new foster parents are a pain (they are), but nothing really fits. She finally just tells herself she feels like going to the damn community center so she’ll go there.

            She slips inside and it’s warm and down one hall there’s elderly voices calling bingo, and down another there’s young voices shrieking and cheering in play and there’s a single user bathroom she can slip into and clean up her face.

            She hides in there for a little bit, sitting on the floor by the sink, knees drawn up to her chest, listening to the muffled sounds of a softer, nicer world outside.

            She wonders if she would be welcome to join those kids in the other room. She wonders if she’d win if she played bingo.

…

It's actually hilarious to Lance how genuinely uncomfortable babies make Keith.

"Shouldn't you go rescue him?" Carly asks at his shoulder, watching as Keith awkwardly fumbles his way through interacting with Jamie's son David.

Davie is a toddler now, stumbling around, touching things and people and pets. He's tried to climb onto the family dog's back more than once, Cerberus (the name is Carly's fault, she was going through a Greek myth phase that basically never ended) patiently enduring little hands grabbing fistfuls of his shaggy fur. Cerb took the attention with equanimity, the mutt just shaking his head tiredly and moving to another corner of the living room. Mom got him from a shelter when Sofia went off to college, saying the house was too quiet with all her children gone (All the kids suggested name ideas and the family voted on the top choice. It was almost appallingly wholesome). The house is certainly loud enough now, with everyone gathered for Christmas. Even Shiro and Allura stopped by for Christmas Eve brunch on their way to visit Shiro's dad and stepmom. They had Coran with them for some reason (probably Allura's family being back in England for the holidays and Allura not wanting him to be alone on Christmas). Either way, Coran-Coran-the-mustache-man was a big hit with the kids.

But now it's Christmas afternoon, everyone is a little too full of food and drink to function, and without the distraction of Coran and his mustache, their youngest family member, like a cat, has zeroed in on the one person guaranteed to feel the most uncomfortable around small children.

"Nah," Lance shrugs, "he'll be fine for a few minutes."

Keith does not look fine, he looks profoundly uncomfortable as he tries to dodge sticky baby hands and make sense of gargled toddler syllables and one-word phrases.

"Are you sure?" Carly asks as Keith shoots the two of them a 'help me' look.

Lance grins and gives him finger-guns because he can. Keith glares. Lance blows him a kiss and turns back to his sister.

"Yeah, totally."

David is ceremoniously removing the sparkly red decorative ping-pong balls (they're not actually ping-pong balls but that's what they look like, dammit) from their nest of silver tinsel in the tray on the table and handing them to Keith with great dignity.

Keith, seemingly at a loss for what to do or how to reject them without triggering a meltdown, is just accepting them. His hands are swiftly filling with fake Christmas ornaments and he looks unsure where to go from here.

Lance is a grown adult who will not laugh at the bewildered expression on his husband's face. He will not.

Okay he might snicker a little. But only a little.

"Doesn't it worry you?"

"Huh?"

"How uncomfortable Keith is with babies," Carly says. She shrugs, "I mean, no judgement, I'm not exactly a fan either and I'm fucking sick of people telling me I 'look like I'd be a great mom' because fuck that. Curvy girls aren't all mommy material, asshats. But. You know. You're you. You're super into the kid thing. Aren't you a little...?"

Lance shrugs, "it's not like the kids at work are babies, Lala. They're pretty much all school age or they’re with their parents. I'm not afraid Keith will traumatize an infant with his awkwardness or anything."

She squints at him, "Are you being this dense on purpose or are you just oblivious?"

"Huh?"

"You're next, dude. Val and Jamie had their kids; you're up. You're the next one on the list."

"What list?"

"Oh my god. Grandchildren. You're next. Pretty soon Mom'll start hassling you and I'm kind of worried you’ve never talked to your baby-phobic spouse about kids."

"Uh, no? It ever came up?"

"Lance" she's staring at him like he's the biggest idiot to ever moron, "That's THE conversation."

"No, I'm pretty sure there are a lot more conversations that go into a healthy, mutually fulfilling relationship."

"Lance," Carly hisses, "Are you kidding me right now? You and Keith never once talked about kids? You've been together almost four years!"

Lance shouldn't be feeling this defensive, but dammit, he came here for a good time and honestly, he's feeling so attacked right now. "It's just - it's not a thing, don't make it a Thing, jeez-"

Carly's face softens ever-so-slightly "I'm just saying, Lance, it's the kind of thing you talk about."

Lance sighs and chokes back a host of nasty, defensive responses he could shoot his sister's way. You know, if he wanted to end this conversation in a fight and not have to speak to her for the rest of the night, spend the next few days drowning in guilt and stubbornly refusing to apologize while Keith sighs and rolls his eyes at him.

Damn. Keith's so thoroughly infiltrated his life he's even in his worst-case scenarios.

"It's never come up," Lance mumbles lamely. Carly is good enough not to push it, but Lance still feels thorny tension twisting in his gut all the same.

It makes the inevitable moment where Keith's handful of sparkly Christmas ornaments overflows and spills everywhere a little less funny.

...

            The fosters make Acxa pretend to do Christmas with them but it’s really awkward. They give her a Visa gift card and she says thank you and they give each other boring stuff like dishtowels and socks. Acxa strongly suspects they exchanged their real heartfelt presents without her the night before because they didn’t want her to feel like she was missing out or anything. Or maybe they’re just the kind of boring people who give each other plain old dishtowels and dress socks for major holidays. Acxa can’t really judge.

            She lies and says a friend invited her for Christmas dinner (they didn’t – it’s a new school and according to the school counselor Acxa is ‘emotionally detached’ so it’s not like she’s got any forever friends yet…or any friends). But it gets her out of the house and gives them space for their ‘real Christmas’. She goes to the community center because she keeps coming back there, even though she never really talks to anyone. Most of the staff is off doing Christmas-y stuff and there aren’t many people around but the woman with long bleach-blonde pigtails is there hosting some kind of card game populated mostly by senior citizens. Acxa watches for a while without commenting. Blonde pigtail woman lets her, although she stops by to drop off a cookie and hot chocolate where Acxa sits by the door.

            “You want to play?”

            “No.”

            “Okay.” Silence and then, “You want something more to eat there’s a table over there.”

            Acxa waits until she’s gone back to the old people before sneaking over to the refreshments table and stuffing a paper cup full of cheese and crackers.

            On her way back to her corner she realizes all the old people are playing a really vicious round of poker. She laughs into her chedder and Ritz.

…

"What's wrong with you?" Keith mumbles at him that night, eyes heavy with almost-sleep, the two of them full of good food and good cheer, sprawled out on his parents' fold-out couch. The Christmas tree is still on in the corner, painting the angles of Keith's face in shades of green and blue and red where he lies on his side, a sleepy furrow in his brow as he stares at Lance. He's beautiful and Lance doesn't want to lose him.

('You won't lose him' his idealistic side says. 'Couples who've been together a lot longer than us have split over smaller things' his cynical side whispers back)

Lance doesn't like difficult conversations. Lance doesn't like not knowing what he wants and Lance doesn't like knowing (or thinking he knows) exactly what Keith will say if he brings it up. (Keith has always been uncomfortable around kids, the younger they are the stiffer and more awkward he gets, he's not going to hesitate, he's going to know in two seconds he doesn't want to even consider kids down the road - and Lance, Lance doesn't know what he wants.)

"Nothing," Lance mumbles back, face half-buried in his pillow.

"Liar."

"Shut up."

Silence as Keith keeps staring at him. “You need to tell me when I fuck up, you know."

_Huh?_ Lance thinks.

"Huh?" He says because apparently his filter took a vacation after his third cup of mulled wine.

"If I upset you, or embarrass you, or do something wrong. I'm not going to get it if you don't. I'm not...intuitive like that. So you have to tell me if I fuck up."

Lance almost snorts because Keith is both right and wrong and the whole situation is ridiculous. No, Keith's people-sense isn't the strongest and yes, he does have to be told exactly what he did wrong or he won't understand...but he's done nothing wrong here. He's just been Keith, and Lance loves him and Lance doesn't know what to say to him.

(And intuition is the wrong word here, Keith has great intuition, great instincts, but all that uncanny understanding seems to only work when he's _at work_. Keith can anticipate a cue or a problem like no other, but hand the boy an emotional conversation and his brain turns into cabbage soup.)

"It's not you, babe."

The frown intensifies. Keith looks less sleepy now. "But there is something."

"I didn't say that," Lance hedges because he is a Mature Adult.

Keith reaches over and pinches him because Keith is not a mature adult at all.

"Ow, inappropriate touching," Lance whines, slapping him away, "seriously, you're almost thirty, behave yourself."

"What's wrong?"

"My husband just pinched my arm like an eight year old?"

Keith's eyebrows look like they're trying to fold into each other he's frowning so hard.

"Is there anything I can do? Do we need to talk about something?"

"Yeah, we need to talk about when you last clipped your nails, werewolf."

Keith tips his head forward until their foreheads are pressed together; because when Keith can't make words work right he gets tactile. His eyes somehow look even more purple than usual in the dim, multicolored light. Purple-black like ink or space. "Tell me what I need to do," he says. Lance can feel Keith's frown pressing into his own skin.

Lance reaches up and skates his fingertips over the sharp curve of Keith's cheekbone. A warm, twisty feeling is curling somewhere in his chest and this conversation isn't over, it hasn't really begun even, but the force of Keith's care and concern makes it easier and harder all at once.

"Lala just said some stuff that made me think, that's all."

"That's all?" Because Keith isn't going to pry if Lance doesn't give the information out. It's one of his most annoying and endearing traits as a communicator.

"That's all, babe. Don't worry. Go to sleep."

Keith is still looking at him suspiciously but his blinks are getting slower and slower. He'll be asleep soon.

Lance switches to running light fingers through his hair - it's an underhanded tactic, but it does the trick. Keith’s eyes drift closed, his breathing evening out. A thin sliver of a purple-eyed glare tells Lance that Keith 100% knows what he's doing but is too sleepy to protest.

In the space of a few breaths, Keith has drifted off and Lance is left alone with his thoughts.

Fuck.

That was a bad idea.

...

            Acxa decides she should probably stay away from the community center for a few days on her way back to the fosters. The staff have obviously started noticing her. She doesn’t want them to start thinking she’s a Troubled Youth or homeless or a charity case. She’s fine. She’s eleven years old, emphasis on the old. She’s fine.

…

The thing is; Lance hasn't ever really thought about having kids of his own. He grew up with two little sisters and his nieces were born when he was still in college. Having kids all over the place has always been so normal that he somehow never wondered about having his own someday. There was always someone else's nearby if he wanted to play with a munchkin.

And the selfish part of him is there in the back of his mind reminding him how nice it is to hand small children back to their actual caretakers and go home and be an adult with his spouse and their demented friends at the end of the day.

He's never _not_ wanted kids. He likes kids. He wouldn't be so good at his job if he didn't. But he doesn't feel like his life has some sort of void in it without the pitter-patter of little feet or whatever.

Keith's not going to even consider it, though. Lance knows Keith, knows how much babies freak him out, knows about his issues with his own mother and father. Keith's not even going to blink before shutting that conversation down.

And Lance...doesn't know what he wants. He just knows he doesn't want to shut down the conversation, not yet.

And he doesn't want to disappoint anyone.

He never wants to disappoint anyone.

And apparently 'he's next' or something in the family baby-making equation.

Shit.

Unable to take anymore of his own thoughts, Lance rolls over and buries his face in Keith's warm shoulder. Maybe if he closes his eyes his thoughts will sort their damn selves out.

...

            Acxa decides she’s not willing to give up the community center just because some stupid adults might jump to stupid conclusions. So she goes back the next day and signs up for some – shudder – _youth after school activities_.

            She signs up with a fake name; her real one is too memorable.

            “Why hello there! Matilda Bucket, is it?” the man with the orange moustache says cheerily when he sees her signing up, “Glad to see you joining us!”

            What’s that supposed to mean?

            “We’re always happy to see new faces around here!” he informs her her brightly. His eyes are sharp, though, and she wonders how much he knows.

            “Good to be here.” She says stiffly, the programmed social nicety uncomfortable in her mouth.

            He smiles brilliantly at her before wandering away.

            She decides all over again that she won’t actually participate in any of the activities ‘she’ signed up for.

…

            There is something up with Lance and it’s bugging Keith. He’s been weird since Christmas and every time Keith asks what’s wrong, he deflects with a sunny smile that’s only just barely cracked around the edges and it’s driving Keith up a fucking wall. Also on the list of things currently driving Keith to drink are Lotor, the new director at work who Keith is pretty sure is the unholy fusion of Satan himself and a shampoo commercial, the choreographer Lotor brought with him (her name is Ezor and Keith isn’t sure if she’s hitting on him or threatening him when she drapes herself between his and Lotor’s chairs in the rehearsal room and casually chats about her time working as an exotic dancer on private casino boats for the rich and mega-rich, but either way it’s pissing him off), and the fact they’re working on a musical at the moment and he might have to put an icepick through his eardrums to get the music out of his head.

            Keith does not have the time or patience to attempt to decode Lance’s weirdness on top of all the work stress. He emphatically Does Not.

            Which is why he’s trying to stealthily force it out of him.

            This is how marriage is supposed to work, right?

            Keith’s plan of attack is simple but devastatingly effective – be so goddamn nice and considerate and generally terrifyingly Stepford-Wife-y until Lance freaks out and fesses up whatever’s bothering him just to return them to their pleasantly competitive and antagonistic status quo. It has worked in the past, to great effect.

            (This is perhaps why Shiro gives him slightly wary looks whenever he asks how things are at home. Shiro does not understand how their relationship functions. Keith chalks this up to Shiro never having been married and just not having the life experience to understand this kind of love. Shiro chalks it up to Keith ‘being neurotic and probably needing several years’ worth of therapy’. Whatever. It’s all good.)

            Nevertheless it’s day three of homemade dinners and Keith packing both their lunches before Lance has a chance to, making sandwiches out of the weird whole grain bread Lance likes so much but Keith thinks is too seedy, and including the weird drinkable apple sauce Lance not-so secretly prefers but Keith can’t stand. Lance has started looking around warily every time he opens the fridge, like he expects a clown to jump out at him like a frozen goods jack in the box or something. Keith has also done the laundry before Lance can get to it, put away all the dishes in the dishdrain before Lance can, and cleaned the entire kitchen. Keith is so tired from all this niceness he actually accidentally spilled coffee on Lotor’s purple silk button-down shirt yesterday. Which was honestly an unexpected bonus.

            The ex-interns are looking at him with concern in their eyes and Adela keeps pretending not to hear when he asks for more coffee. Tony is leaving green tea on his desk. Farid is drawing demented doodles on the to-go cups. Alyssa is staying clear of it all like the smart girl she is.

            “Keith,” Lance is frowning at him over his plate of lasagna (Keith got the recipe from Shiro and it’s only a little bit burnt), “what the fuck is going on?”

            Keith takes a bite of lasagna because he’s proud of it and because if he’s chewing he can’t answer Lance’s question.

            See? He’s being polite.

            “Keith.”

            Keith definitely burned this a little bit. It’s taking longer to chew than anticipated.

            “Keith.”

            Still chewing.

            “ _Keith._ ” Lance kicks him this time, surprising Keith into swallowing his practically-liquified bite of lasagna.

            “Yes?” he tries to ask innocently. What comes out is something close to a flat monotone. Oh well, he tried.

            “What the fuck is going on, babe? Did you do something? Do you want something? You do realize no matter how many lasagnas you make me I’m still not going to be into you getting a motorcycle? I don’t want you to end up street pizza, no matter how good your health insurance is.”

            Keith wonders if he can get away with taking another conversation-avoiding bite of baked noodles and cheese.

            “ _Keith,_ ” Lance is turning big blue eyes on him and oh _fuck,_ Keith is a weak, weak man and Lance is _pretty_ , “What the actual hell is going on with you? You’re freaking me out. Are you leading up to dramatically telling me you’re leaving me to return to your desert nomad lifestyle? Because that would…that would actually really suck. Please don’t leave me to live in a shack in the middle of nowhere with the coyotes. I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to tumbleweeds. I couldn’t even visit you!”

            “There’s nothing wrong with _me_ ,” Keith protests, “I want to know what’s wrong with _you_. And why the fuck would I leave you to go live in the desert without air conditioning or running water? I’ve done that before and it sucked. I like AC and flush toilets and having a garbage disposal in my sink! Also, coyotes are the _worst_.” Keith is pretty sure he’s glaring at the end of that speech, because that’s his default facial expression when confronted with _emotion._

            Lance’s face does a lot of things that kind of make it look like he’s been electro-shocked but without the intense pain. “How are we so bad at communicating?”

            “I don’t know; you’re the one being weird.”

            “I’m not being weird!”

            “Are so.”

            “Am not!”

            “Are so!”   
            “ _Am. Not!_ ” Lance says with an audible flourish.

            Keith wonders if face-planting into his lasagna is an acceptable argument-winning tactic. “You’ve just been weird since Christmas. I wanted to know what was up.”

            “So you were creepily nice to me for several days?”

            “You’re my husband…I should be nice to you.”

            Lance sighs; he looks tired. “Babe, you’ve said it yourself. We’re not… _nice._ We’re assholes. And we like it that way. It works for us. So…yeah, while I appreciate a thoughtful gesture or three every now and then…this pod person perfection is really disturbing.”

            Keith mumbles, “That’s kind of the point?” Which has a fifty-fifty chance of offending Lance or making him laugh.

            Luckily the latter wins, Lance cackles explosively. “You’re ridiculous, babe.”

            “We’re ridiculous,” Keith grumbles, poking Lance’s foot with his own under the table.   
            “Yeah, and we aren’t really dining-room table people. What do you say we taking this into the living room?” Lance of course wriggles his eyebrows suggestively on the last sentence and Keith stares at him in under confusion.

            “Are you inviting me to eat dinner or make out on the couch?”

            “A little of column a, a little of column b.”

            Keith is so distracted by Lance and their nonsense fight he temporarily forgets Lance never actually admitted what was bugging him.

…

            Lance feels a little bit bad about seducing Keith instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to confide in him. But really, they’d had one of their weirdest squabbles to date over plates of lasagna and excessive niceness. Keith had not _earned_ any heartfelt confessions, the underhanded _sneak._

            An underhanded sneak who admittedly had made a pretty decent lasagna.

…

            Acxa doesn’t like team sports, she doesn’t like arts and crafts, she doesn’t like other kids her own age. She likes books and being left alone. (Maybe, she’s never not been alone so who knows whether or not she actually likes it). But if she brings a book and sits in the gym where most of the other kids are running around doing their scheduled after school whatever she looks enough like one of them that she can slip under the radar.

            She can be just one of the kids and they can let her stay in this warm, golden place.

            (She doesn’t know what it is about the community center that makes her feel so safe, so happy, she’s not even sure if it’s actually happiness half the time, more a sense of strange nostalgia for something she never actually experienced, a sense of belonging and home and family she’s never felt anywhere else.)

            She still doesn’t talk to anyone, but she sits on the pile of tumbling mats wedged into the corner of the gym with a library paperback and watches everyone and feels almost content.

…

            It’s a few weeks into the new year, the artistic director is making noises about hiring Lotor permanently (why, god, why?) and keeping Ezor on to teach dance classes (is there no justice in the universe?), things with Lance have returned to mostly normal (although Keith is still concerned, for the record), and somehow Keith has gotten suckered into teaching self-defense classes at the Community Center.

            Nyma, the adult programming director, greets him with a smirk when he shows up on a Monday afternoon, duffle bag thrown carelessly over his shoulder. It’s his smaller duffle bag so it’s seen less wear and tear than his large duffle, meaning it only has gaff tape on it in a few strategic spots and he doesn’t have to use tie line to keep any part of it together anywhere.

            Keith may have a problem throwing things away sometimes.

            “Tell me again why I’m here on one of my few afternoons off?” Keith grumps.

            “Because you’re a pushover,” Nyma says, still smirking.

            Keith resists the urge to sigh heavily and glares at Nyma instead. This does nothing to stop her smirking.

            “Your students will mostly be adults and a few teenagers,” she explains bluntly, “No one under the age of sixteen, and any minors are here with written permission from their parents. Don’t do anything inappropriate or actually break anyone or we’ll get sued and that would suck. Any questions?”

            Keith has lots of questions, up to and including what he did in a past life to deserve this. He does not think Nyma can answer that one, so he just shakes his head mutely and goes to the locker room to change into his gym clothes.

…

            Acxa may have to quit going to the community center. The staff have started to notice her again and it’s awful. The youth programming director in particular keeps trying encourage her to _participate_ and yesterday he came over and _asked her what she was reading._ Like he wanted to have a _conversation._ Acxa responded by holding the book up cover-first in front of her face so he could both read the title himself and not make eye contact with her.

            He’s too nice, too energetic, too _much._ She doesn’t want to talk to him; she just wants to…be near him and _his_ kids. To orbit them and pretend she’s part of them but not actually _be_ one of them. She knows better than that. She’s eleven years _old_. And she reads books way above her reading level and her teacher gives her the stink eye for reading ahead in class instead of following along (she spoiled the ending of _Where the Red Fern Grows_ because come on, her classmates should know better than to get attached to the dogs in an award-winning classic dog book but now most of the girls won’t talk to her and her teacher took her aside to have a ‘serious chat’ about ‘appropriate times and ways to share things’).

            She’s not like them, but she doesn’t want them to be the ones to remind her. She wants to sit her in her corner and read and pretend she could be one of them if she wanted.

            She knows better to stick around once adults start getting concerned about her ‘social development’, though. But she doesn’t want to leave the community center behind, not yet. It’s her good place. She wants to stay around here where it’s warm and familiar.

            So she’s wandering the hall today, avoiding the other kids and the youth director with the warm brown skin and laughing blue eyes who asks her what she’s reading and if her book’s any good.

            Over in what she thinks of as the grown up half of the community center there’s something new going on. A man with long-ish dark hair pulled up in a stubby ponytail is leading a group of grown-ups, mostly women with a few men, through a series of basic self-defense moves. Escaping holds, how to throw a punch.

            Acxa is intrigued despite herself.

            Setting her bag beside the door she slips off her shoes and steps into the back of the class.

…

            There’s a kid in the back row.

            She’s small and scrappy with a short mess of blue-black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin slightly flushed from how much energy she’s throwing into every move. There is no way in hell she’s sixteen or older. But her sharp dark brows are drawn tight with concentration and she’s focusing mightily on getting every move perfect as she mimics what the rest of the class is doing.

            Keith ponders what to do as the last hour of class passes. He keeps an eye on her. She’s concentrating but her eyes scan the room periodically, making sure no one’s paying too much attention to her. She’s close to the door but it’s not directly at her back. She’s got that feral look in her eye that Keith knows too well.

            It’s the same glint that flashes at him from the mirror every now and then when he begins to doubt that his life could have possibly turned out this preternaturally _good_ despite everything.

            He leaves her alone and when class ends he doesn’t approach her but he does watch her. Two can play at the corner-of-the-eye game and he’s had nearly thirty years to perfect scanning a room. She escapes before the rest of the class really disburses, when they’re busy gathering their things and chatting casually amongst themselves.

            She grabs a backpack on her way out and Keith hopes it’s just a school bag and she’s heading home after this. It looks too new for this late in the school year, pink and plastic-y and very Elementary School Girl™. It doesn’t suit her, really.

            Maybe she’s a foster kid. Keith’s foster home had come with brand-new accessories that didn’t quite match up with the person he’d grown into either.

            He thinks about her as he changes back into his street clothes, pondering this mystery kid. He’ll ask Lance about her tonight.

            On his way out he stops to tell Nyma “I’ll be back on Wednesday,” with no further explanation.

…

            Acxa tentatively likes the self-defense class. She checks the flyer in the lobby. There’s another class on Wednesday afternoon. Perfect.

…

            Keith is thinking too hard. Lance can tell and he is Concerned. Keith thinking too hard is never a good thing. Keith thinking too hard typically ends with Keith doing something incredibly excessive and stupid because overthinking stresses him out and short-circuits some connection in his brain that controls his sense of proportional response to emotional stimuli.

            Keith is frowning at his green bean and ham cube casserole. Admittedly, they both hate casserole, but really, what else is Lance supposed to make when neither of them has gone grocery shopping in two weeks?

            “You okay, babe?” Lance tests the waters. You never know what Keith could be brooding on. He frowns just as hard over a stupid plot twist in a tv show as he does over a particularly awkward phone call with his father.

            Keith blinks and glances up at him, “There was a kid in my self-defense class today.”

            “Yeah, Nyma said they were opening it up to sixteen and overs with parental consent.”

            Keith shakes his head, “No, this was a kid. A small one.”

            “How small are we talking?”

            “Ten, maybe a skinny eleven or twelve?”

            “Girl, dark hair, kind of intense, doesn’t talk to anyone?”

            Keith nods.

            “Huh,” Lance says, “That’s Matilda Bucket. We’ve been keeping an eye on her.”

            Keith raises an expressive eyebrow, “ _Matilda Bucket_?”   
            “Yeah, I know, what were her parents thinking – ”

            Keith shakes his head, “She doesn’t seem like a Matilda.”

            “Well, let’s be honest, does anyone?”

            That pulls a contemplative nod from Keith, the kind that says his brain’s already a thousand miles away. “She wasn’t disruptive or anything. Had more focus and control than most of the class.”

            Lance nods, “She’s really contained. We’re a little concerned. But every time anyone talks to her she spooks and disappears. Coran says she signed up for my after school activities but she doesn’t actually do any of them. She just hides in a corner and reads.”

            Keith’s face creases thoughtfully, a wry smile turning up the corner of his mouth, “Sounds like me as a kid.”

            “Huh,” Lance says, he hadn’t thought of it that way. But now that Keith’s brought it up he can’t stop imagining a pint-sized Keith Kogane in Matilda’s place and it’s more than a little sad.

            They really need to keep an eye on this kid.

…

            They’re still reading _Where the Red Fern Grows_ in English class. The last lesson the teacher awkwardly attempted to deal with the fallout from Acxa spoiling the ending (that was painful for pretty much everyone, Acxa reads under her desk for most of the ‘discussion’ only to get her book taken away for not paying attention). Axca is trying to read _The Mists of Avalon_ because she heard it was about King Arthur and had a bunch of cool women characters but it seems to have way too many scenes featuring naked people kissing in it and not nearly enough fighting and magic for her tastes.

            The local librarian is clearly not very well-suited to her job.

            Then again, Acxa did lie and say she was looking for book recommendations for her foster mom instead of book recommendations for herself. Typically if you’re eleven and you ask the librarian for book recs from the grownup section they shake their heads at you, say “aren’t you precocious?” and give you something lame from the kids’ section instead. But clearly claiming you’re looking for a book about badass ladies, King Arthur, and magic for a forty-year-old woman is not a good strategy either.

            The only upside to the whole debacle (that’s a new word, Acxa likes it, she learned it from another book last week and it’s one of her favorites) is that _The Mists of Avalon_ is about 900 pages and huge so it doesn’t fit in her desk. She has to sit it on the top, and every time her teacher walks past her desk she has a funny little staring contest with the book like she’s daring it to make trouble because it’s not where it’s supposed to be and both she and Acxa know it. Acxa tries her best to look as innocent as possible when this happens. Acxa’s pretty sure her ‘innoncent face’ is just a blank stare but it still seems to get the message across effectively.

            Still, a 900-page book doesn’t fit very well beneath her desk, making it a lot less surprising when she gets caught reading during the ‘class discussion’. She glares at it as it’s hauled away and mouths ‘traitor’ at its retreating spine.

            She really needs new reading material. Preferably something with dragons, but she’s not picky.

…

            Keith is aware his feud with Lotor is getting stupid, but he isn’t actually emotionally mature enough to care. Also, that perfectly coiffed bastard switched all the theatre staff coffee to decaf. And to add insult to injury, it’s all French Vanilla flavored. The caffeinated, normal-tasting coffee is _somewhere_ but for the first time _Keith doesn’t know where something is in his theatre and it’s killing him._

            So he replaces all the staff creamer with packets of instant powdered creamer you get at motels and gas stations.

            What? Keith grew up on that crap. He _likes_ it. (He definitely does not but his tolerance for it is much higher than a normal person’s, much like his tolerance for sand in his shoes and alien-related bullshit is higher than a normal person’s.)

            “Decaf is better for the heart, you know,” Lotor says in rehearsal, “I’m so glad they’ve switched over. You know, the man who invented decaffeinated coffee did so because he was convinced caffeine killed his father. Tragic story, really.”

            Keith cracks open a Red Bull and pours it into his French-fucking-Vanilla decaf coffee while staring Lotor straight in the eye. He then tops it off with a packet of powdered creamer he stirs into the (heinous) beverage without breaking eye contact. He’s pretty sure Adela is videoing this on her phone to share with her cronies later. He lets her.

            Lotor is looking distinctly ill by the time Keith raises the cup to his lips and takes a long swig.

            That should not be nearly as satisfying as it is. He should probably make sure Adela doesn’t post this video on social media of any kind. Or give it to Farid, which is roughly the equivalent of posting it herself multiplied by roughly a billion.

…

            “So I hear you and Lotor are battling for dominance,” Lance says apropos of nothing when Keith gets home,

            Keith considers lying but gives it up as hopeless, “Yes,” he tells his husband instead, pecking him on the lips, “I’m winning.”

            Lance pulls a face, “Babe, as much as I love kissing you, your mouth tastes like death.”

            “That would be the coffee, red bull and shitty powdered creamer.”

            Lance just sighs dramatically at the heavens, “Why, oh why do I find this man attractive?”

            “I work out,” Keith deadpans from the bathroom.

            “Shush, babe, I’m asking the heavens for guidance. They say ‘signs to point to yes’ which is useless.”

            “Huh, didn’t realize the heavens were a magic eight ball.”

            “Seriously? Of all my pop culture references that’s the one you get? Why are you like this?”

            Keith shrugs, “I dunno, ask the heavens.”

            A brief moment and it’s Lance’s turn to shrug, “Reply hazy, try again.”

            “I’m more concerned by the fact that you have magic eight ball sayings memorized than anything else.”

…

            Axca is pretty sure the guy who teaches the self-defense classes at the community center knows she’s there. But he hasn’t said anything, even though the flyers say the class is for sixteen and older and Acxa can’t even pass for thirteen. He lets her stick around instead, even though it’s been weeks and there’s no way he doesn’t know she’s been to every class. She’s reminded of a pair of cats she saw in one of her previous foster homes, an older cat and a kitten. The kitten was over six months old, growing into its paws. The older cat would pretend the kitten wasn’t around until the kitten tried to pounce on its tail or get its attention or play with it. Then it’d bop the kitten on the head with one paw and run away, the kitten chasing after it.

            The lesson Acxa learned from the cats is that as long as you don’t make yourself obvious, as long as you don’t mess with the older cat, you’re invisible. You can mutually agree to pretend the other isn’t there, possibly forever, as long as you aren’t dumb. As long as you don’t try to play with the bigger cat.

            So she decides the teacher guy is the bigger cat and she’s the kitten and for now she’s going to stay invisible for as long as she can.

…

            It’s a conversation with Shiro that makes things begin to click together for Keith. It’s Shiro’s lunch break and they’ve met up at a small sandwhich shop halfway between the theatre and the hospital. And after all the necessary small talk is past Keith finds himself spilling the story of the mystery girl from the community center to his brother.

            “Yeah, she’s maybe ten or a small eleven/twelve-ish. Lance and Coran are a little worried about her but they haven’t spotted any evidence of mistreatement. She’s just small for her age and kind of reclusive. She shows up at my class and does the exercises and doesn’t talk to anyone. Lance says she disappears whenever any of them try to talk to her but she doesn’t really leave, she just hangs around somewhere else.”

            “It sounds like, for whatever reason, she’s decided the community center is a safe space,” Shiro observes, “She might be in fight or flight mode for some reason, you said you thought she might be in foster care – ”

            Keith shakes his head, “Based on barely any evidence. Just a new backpack in the middle of the school year and that could mean anything.”

            Shiro nods mildly, “You do have pretty good instincts, though.”

            “Not about this kind of stuff, kids are Lance’s area.”

            “Maybe, but fight or flight responses are yours,” Shiro reminds him gently.

            Keith folds his arms and leans back in his chair, tipping it onto its back legs carelessly, “You’re not wrong,” he sighs gustily, “I just wish I could figure out what’s going on with this kid.”

            “She reminds you of yourself.”

            Keith snorts, “Maybe a little.”

            “Maybe a lot,” Shiro points out, “Her name,” – they’d both agreed that ‘Matilda Bucket’ sounded like a fake name – “is even a literary reference.”

            Keith’s brows pulled togheter, “Yeah?”

            “Yeah,” Shiro said, “I’m surprised you didn’t notice – Matilda Bucket. It’s a reference to Roald Dahl’s books. _Matilda_ – the main character is named, appropriately, Matilda. And _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ the main character’s name is Charlie Bucket.”

            “Holy shit,” mutters Keith.

            “I used to read those books to you when you were little.”

            “Yeah, you did…” Keith said, “Holy shit, I can’t believe I didn’t notice. Lance says she’s always reading when she’s around the other kids…Shiro, I think I figured out how to talk to this kid.”

…

            The self-defense instructor guy is hanging around the kids’ half of the community center on Tuesday. He and the youth director guy must know each other because the youth director guy keeps stopping by where he’s sitting, leaning back in a folding chair, paperback book in his hands. Maybe he’s waiting for the youth director guy. Maybe they have plans. It’s hard to imagine them outside of the community center but they must do things other than teach self-defense and run around with other people’s kids, right? Acxa does stuff other than learn self-defense and watch other people’s kids run around. She supposes they must too.

            Acxa wonders what he’s reading. She could walk past him to get to her corner from the door, or she could take the long way and avoid him. But then she wouldn’t know what he’s reading.

            She decides to risk it and walks past his chair. He doesn’t acknowledge her, just turns a page. There’s a dragon on the cover of his book, coiled around a nameplate reading _His Majesty’s Dragon_. Acxa hurries away once she’s read the words, hoping the teacher guy didn’t notice her slowing down in front of his paperback.

            He’s still there, joking with the youth instructor guy and the orange-mustachioed man. Mr. Moustache and Youth Director are tangled up in what sounds like an incredibly silly conversation about whether or not spaceship-eating-worms could survive on asteroids when she passes and she risks a glance up the self defense instructor and his intriguing dragon book. His eyes meet her and she knows she’s screwed. She’s the kitten and she poked the older cat.

            Time to minimize the damage. “I like books about dragons too,” she says as innocuously as possible. There, that seems normal, right? That doesn’t invite further scrutiny and possible explusion from self-defense class, right?

            He quirks a slight smile, “This one’s pretty good so far,” he offers, “Want to read it when I’m done?”

            “I could get it from the library.”

            “Sure,” he agrees easily.

            She leaves before he can figure out a way to make that into a longer conversation.

…

            She forgets the name of the author and messes up the title enough that the librarian can’t find it at first, then when they finally sort it out it’s only to find out the first book in the series isn’t at their location. Acxa tells herself this is fine and she didn’t want to read it that badly anyway.

…

            “She talked to you, Keith!”

            “I know, Lance.”

            “My boy, Keith, I’m so proud of you! Communicating with youngsters, bonding with the next generation!” Coran gushes.

            “She talked to _you_ ,” Lance says earnestly, “This is…this is major, Keith.”

            Keith nods, running his fingers over the edges of the pages of his book – he’d picked this one partly because it was next on his pile of ‘to-read’ books and partly because dragons was one of the major things he’d have been interested in at age eleven that seemed fairly universal and not a product of his unique upbringing.

            “Yeah,” he agrees with Lance, and a little with Coran. It is major.

…

            Acxa decides to go to self-defense class despite her misgivings. If the instructor tries to talk to her or ask her if she has a ‘safe home’ and if she ‘needs anything’ she’ll bolt.

            But it’s all very normal, except the instructor is a bit late and everyone is in place by the time he shows up. Class proceeds as usual, they’re learning kicks today and Acxa is consumed with lashing out at invisible opponents with her feet, maintaining her center of gravity, losing herself in the motions so much she actually forgets about anything else for a blessed two hours.

            When she goes to leave she sees a pair of books sitting on top of her backpack, _His Majesty’s Dragon_ by Naomi Novik and _Dragon Rider_ by Cornelia Funke. There’s a sticky note on one scribbled with dramatic, spikey writing.

            _I don’t know what kind of books you read –_ Dragon Rider _is meant for kids and_ His Majesty’s Dragon _is supposed to be for adults. But they’re both stories about dragons and I like them._

            She looks up sharply to see the instructor folding up the practice mats. She waits until everyone else, all the adults, have finally left until it’s only her and him before clearing her throat and saying, “What is this?”

            The instructor guy looks up, apparently surprised. He should be, she doesn’t normally linger. He shrugs, though, “You said you liked books about dragons. I like sharing.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me.”  
“I’m not. I’m sharing dragon books.”

“You’d better not be some kind of pervert.”

“What the hell, kid? No, I’m not a pervert.”

She stares at him, “Why are you giving these to me?”

“I’m letting you borrow them. Not just giving them away.”

“Fine,” she says, “But why?”

He tilts his head to the side, “My husband likes space books. I like dragon books and Shakespeare and Dickens. I need someone to talk about dragon books with.”

“Don’t you have any other friends?” she demands bluntly.

He snorts, “Yeah, and they’re all rude to be too.”

            She squints at him, “There’s something not right with you, dude.”

            “I figure there’s something not right with all of us. Normal’s overrated.”

            “So. I can borrow these books?” She’s not sure what to make of this.

            “Yeah, let me know what you think.”

            “That’s it? Nothing weird?”

            “Nothing weird, I swear on my mother’s grave.”

            Acxa nods decisively, “You’re a weirdo. But your books look okay. I’ll let you know.”

            And then she leaves, heart about ready to beat out of her chest with terror. She talked to someone. She talked to someone. She talked to someone and now she has dragon books and maybe a friend.

            What the hell?

…

            “You lent her books?”

            “Yeah.”

            Lance sighs gustily and leans his head on Keith’s shoulder “Jeez, why didn’t _I_ think of that!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanders in late with a new chapter and a travel mug of coffee...
> 
> Long story short, my real life got real busy. I recently moved, started a summer job, am waiting to hear back about season-long jobs, and now I'm on vacation, so I'VE BEEN CRAZY BUSY, Y'ALL. I meant to update sooner, I really did, but it didn't happen. Also, if you've messaged me on Tumblr any time in the last six months, I AM SO SORRY I HAVEN'T RESPONDED, I've been mostly inactive on Tumblr recently because of the real life business and have not caught up on asks in literal months. I APOLOGIZE. No promises that I'll clear out my inbox any time soon, I still have real life to account for and I try to make each response as thoughtful and genuine as possible when I clear out my box which takes a long time and a lot of anxiety-induced re-writes. 
> 
> Anyway, SO MUCH LOVE to everyone who's stuck with this story and supported this AU and who has been so lovely and understanding in the comments about delays and real life stuff. I'm sorry if this chapter's not up to expectations, I really tried, it's just been a lot recently and I didn't proofread half of this. But it's literally my birthday today and I wanted to get a chapter done so happy b-day to me.

**Chapter 2**

         The self-defense instructor isn’t at the community center and it’s a Monday. It’s a Monday at 4pm and the self-defense instructor isn’t there. There’s a hand-written sign inviting students to practice among themselves this week, but saying that unfortunately Keith Kogane won’t be in until next Monday.

         Keith Kogane.

         Huh.

         He has a name. Acxa always supposed he _had_ a name. She’s not _stupid_. Just, she never knew it and it didn’t seem important because after all she wasn’t here to make _friends_ or anything like that. But now he has a name and she has his books in her backpack so she has to care, kind of.

         Well this sucks.

         She fidgets with her backpack straps and wonders what she’s supposed to do now. A hot bubble of anger is rising in her chest unbidden and she’s focusing a lot of energy on squashing it back down where it belongs. She shouldn’t be angry, there isn’t anything to be upset about here, but she was _counting_ on this, she _likes_ this. The truth is she looks forward to this stupid class every week and she’s mad, mad, _mad,_ that she doesn’t get to have it today. School was crappy and the fosters forgot to sign her permission slip for the class field trip so she spent the whole morning stuck in the office doing worksheets while everyone else went to the museum, and there wasn’t enough money left on her hot lunch card (she blames the fosters for that too) for her to get milk with her lunch so she had to drink out of the water fountains, but those are gross so her mouth tasts like dry sand and she’s thirstier than anyone has any right to be. And because everyone else had a fun field trip to the museum during math time that morning they had math in the afternoon and she _hates_ math.

         Her little hands are clenched into little fists and she’s such a baby, her eyes shouldn’t be stinging with frustration, they shouldn’t be stinging at all. Tears are stupid and she’s not stupid. She’s had way worse stuff happen to her. She forces herself to “have perspective”. One of her old social workers used to say that all the time – “have perspective, it could be worse”. She hated that too. “It could be worse” tended to be followed by things inevitably getting worse or people inevitably telling her that her problems aren’t real because she isn’t an adult yet and hadn’t encountered the ‘Real World’. What a load of crap. Be patient. Have perspective. It could be worse.

         Acxa wants to punch perspective into a wall. Break something in her hands and tell anyone who tells her to stop, “it could be worse”. Because yeah, it could be worse, she could be eleven years old and living with stupid fosters who stare through her over plates of bland casserole and said her name’s “just so unsual, isn’t it dear?” to each other over her head when they were first introduced.

         Yeah, she has perspective. Self-defense class being pretty much cancelled isn’t a big deal, not really, but she’s had a crappy day and she wants to crawl into her mom’s lap and cry but since that’s not an option she’d settle for punching really hard and maybe working up enough courage to ask for the next book in the Temeraire series. Except the teacher isn’t here today and everything is _awful._

         She must stand in front of the door for longer than she thinks, burning a hole in the floor between her shoes (they’re Sketchers, white with pink accents and they don’t really fit right and aren’t really her style, because her foster mom bought them without her, just handed the box her way absentmindedly when Acxa first moved in. They’re not bad, the fosters, just…they try but they don’t really try in the ways she needs them to).

         “Can I help you with something, young miss?” a cheery, accented voice slices through her thoughts.

         She blinks the sting out of her eyes and looks up. A skinny man with a dramatic orange moustache is peering at her inquisitively, eyes bright and kind, framed by the kind of faint creases made by a lifetime of smiling.

         She opens her mouth, doesn’t know what to say, and closes it again.

         “Are you here for Keith’s class?” the moustache man asks.

         She nods, wondering how to get out of this non-conversation. She wishes for her old invisibility (even if that was more an illusion than anything else).

         “I’m sorry to say he’ll be gone this week.”

         “I know,” she says, words too hard, to abrupt, a conversational brick wall. ‘Don’t build walls with your words, build doors and windows’ a school counselor told her once. Acxa thought that was dumb. Doors were for letting people in and she didn’t want to do that. Letting people in was dumb. People were dumb. She liked them better when they were kept safe and contained in her books. Paper people couldn’t betray or let you down the way real people could.

         The moustache man doesn’t seem bothered by Acxa’s conversational architecture. He’s utterly unruffled, as he tells her, “Sorry to say, but Keith’s got a prior engagement. Something for his day job,” a conspiratorial look and a stage-whisper, “the one they actually pay him for.”

         It’s not that good of a joke, so Acxa just raises a judgemental eyebrow to let him know she heard and understood him, but overall she’s unimpressed.

         He laughs merrily, “Unfortunately, even our dear Lance isn’t enough to pull him away. That Keith, dutiful to a fault! Ah well, we’ll muddle on without him this week and welcome him back next week.”

         Yeah, but what’s Acxa supposed to do until then? This moustache man and Keith and whoever Lance is obviously have other stuff going for them, but Acxa’s eleven and her world is very small and this was one of the bright spots in it.

         “What am I supposed to do, then?” she asks the moustache man because today has been crappy and she’s emotionally vulnerable or something. ‘Emotionally vulnerable’ is a phrase she picked up from her school counselor. It’s a good one to pull out when you _really_ don’t want to do something, but it can only be used sparingly. Say ‘I can’t do my math homework, I’m too _emotionally vulnerable_ right now’ too many times and it loses all its power.

         “Well, Lance and the other kids have some fun and frivolity planned in the gym!” moustache man offers brightly.

         Ah, Lance must be the youth coordinator. The one who asked her what she was reading that one time, the one with the inquisitive blue eyes who seemed to know the man she now knows is Keith Kogane.

         Acxa shakes her head and tightens her grip on her backpack straps.

         “Not a fan of fun and frivolity?” he asks.

         “Not a fan of other kids,” she mutters at the floor.

         “Ah,” he says, tone a little more serious, “You know, I wasn’t when I was your age either. We used to move all over the place, my family and I, never anywhere for very long and it turns out being the new kid isn’t quite what movies and books would lead you to believe.”

         Acxa nods again, not sure what to say to that. He’s right, but adults always think they’re right. They don’t really need kids to back them up on that. It’ll only go to their heads.

         “You know what,” moustache man says contemplatively, “I think I have the thing, wait just a tick!”

         And then he disappears down the hall before Acxa can ask what a tick is.

         Adults are weird.

…

         “Now, I don’t remember this moment looking like this at all.”

         If Lotor changes the blocking _during the tech cue to cue run_ , Keith is going to throw his script at his head and mess up his goddamn maybe-it’s-Maybelline hair and no one will stop him.

         “It’s exactly what the blocking notes say it should be,” Keith says as blandly as fucking possible when he has three redbulls and a lot of rage in his system already (the switch to decaf coffee has been the opposite of good for his health).

         “Mmmm…” Lotor says skeptically like maybe the notes are lying to him and his eyes aren’t just defective.

         Must be all the hairspray. It fried his braincells or something.

         “Are we good to continue?” Keith asks flatly.

         Lotor nods agonizingly slowly. Glaciars have remodeld the face of mountainsides faster than Lotor Imperator manages to nod his perfectly coiffed head (Keith, of course, looks like a fucking trainwreck and has three pencils shoved in his stubby ponytail already but what the fuck, Lotor’s made some kind of deal with the devil and it’s _fine_.)

         “We’re good to move on,” Keith says into the god-mic and onstage the actors jump back into the scene.

         “Is it possible to see this scene from the top?” Lotor asks because he’s the worst and Keith does not scream into the god mic because Keith has standards, morals, and a sense of professional responsibility. He chugs the last of his red bull instead, wishes it was vodka, puts on a serene face and says, “Hold please,” for the fifth time tonight.

…

         The moustache man’s name is Coran and he has a cat. Acxa learns this when he comes back with said cat. She’s large, fluffy, dappled black and golden brown with a white tummy, and purring in his arms. She’s also wearing a tiny pink harness.

         “Meet Queenie,” Coran says with what Acxa can only describe as a verbal flourish, “She gets terribly lonely at home without me all day, so I bring her to work!”

         Acxa is pretty sure she’s only ever heard of people doing that with their dogs; cats being a little more solitary and self-sufficient. But Queenie’s purring in Coran’s arms and doesn’t even seem phased by being shoved in Acxa’s face or wearing a harness with a little bell on it.

         “It’s time for her afternoon walk!” Coran informs Acxa cheerily.

         Her what now?

         “Normally I stroll her around the building but because I have soooo much paperwork I though you might be a pal and help me out today!”

         Acxa cannot believe that, a.) A grown man just said ‘be a pal’ unironically and b.) He expects her to believe this outrageous falsehood.

         “Are you serious?” she asks flatly.

         Queenie meows and stretches as if to say “Yeah, he’s crazy, but go with it.”

         “Why of course, young lady! Cat care and keeping is a serious undertaking!”

         Not really what Acxa was asking or implying but whatever.

         “Yous seriously want me to walk your cat?”

         “Not outside of course, just around the building a bit. Now,” there’s a glint in his eye as he says, “You’ll have to keep her far away from the gym. I don’t want to cause a riot, after all. Not to mention, some of the children might have allergies!”

         “Uh, sure,” she agrees, slowly realizing just what he’s offering her.

         “So, can I entrust you with this very serious favor?”

         “Walking your cat?”

         “Why yes, it’s a very serious and important assignment!”

         Acxa wonders if his default conversational mode always involves exclamation marks. But she shrugs and says, “Sure, I can walk your cat.”

         “Excellent!” he beams.

         Queenie yawns and blinks yellow eyes at her as if to say “good luck with this.”

…

**To: Waking Up in Vegas**

Will you visit me in prison?

**To: KEEEEEITH**

Fuck no.

**To: Waking Up in Vegas**

Too bad.

**To: KEEEEEITH**

No! Wait!  
Fuck, I love you!  
No felonies!

**To: Waking Up in Vegas**

I hate Lotor

**To: KEEEEEITH**

Keith

Babe

Bae

Baby

No.

**To: Waking Up in Vegas**

I could fashion a makeshift shiv

Out of this pencil

**To: KEEEEEITH**

DON’T MAKE ME CALL SHIRO

…

         Lance should not be cackling at his husband’s misfortunes. He’s pretty sure that’s not a thing you’re supposed to do when you’re married and almost thirty. But the kids keep sending him snapchats of Keith’s face as the muscle in his jaw starts to twitch and his grip on his pencil grows tighter and tighter as the tech run goes longer and longer with funny captions and filters and it’s honestly kind of adorable.

         If you’re into Keith’s murder-face.

         Which is pretty hot.

         But Lance is into all of Keith’s faces, murder-y or otherwise so he’s not exactly objective.

         Lance is so distracted looking at his phone that he honestly almost trips over the kid and Coran’s cat in the hallway. Okay, he does trip; he just manages to scoot the actual falling far enough away he faceplants on carpet instead of on a child and a feline.

He’s groaning and peeling himself off the industrial carpet when he hears a soft child voice mutter, “Oh shit.”

         The cat meows agreement and Lance frowns and mutters “Language,” on reflex.

         The kid is staring at him with huge dark blue eyes. The cat, still wearing her harness, leash wrapped casually around the kid’s wrist, is sprawled out comfortably upside down on the girl’s lap, also staring at him. “Was that to the cat or me?”

         “Huh?” he manages as he scrambles into a sitting position. His dignity remains on the ground where it belongs.

         The kid seems to regret saying anything; she’s closing down again, shoulders hunching, arms gathering the cat against her chest as if to use Queenie as a furry shield against further interaction. Too diddly-darn bad. Queenie is Lance’s boss’ cat. And his cats’ mom. That makes her like…his cat-in-law. Yeah. That’s totally a thing. Anyway, she likes Lance, Lance has an in.

         Lance decides to lean into the goofy and harmless routine he’s mostly perfected over the years. It has been known to charm the uncharmable in the past (okay, it’s charmed Keith, and Pidge is moderately tolerant so its track record isn’t exactly flawless, but whatever, let’s not split hairs).

         “The cat, definitely to the cat. Have you heard her? She swears like a sailor.”

         The girl blinks at him as if she doesn’t know what to make of this pronouncement.

         Lance tries a smile. She raises an eyebrow. Queenie meows as if to say “Stop doing that with your face, you’re scaring the children.”

         Lance frowns at the cat – traitor – and tries something new “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Lance.” He offers his hand.

         The girl raises hers, it has a book in it, one of Keith’s paperbacks, Lance realizes, she must not have returned it yet. She lifts the book, moves to set it down, frowns when she realizes she’ll lose her place, looks back up and shrugs at Lance as if to say ‘what are you gonna do?’ and offers the book to him. He solemnly holds the spine between his fingers and gives it a gentle shake. “A pleasure to make your aquaitance, madam,” he says in his poshest fake British accent (the one he perfected in undergrad just to annoy Allura).

         “Acxa”

         He lets go of the book, tipping his head to the side curiously, “What?”

         “That’s my name. Acxa.” Her lips are pressed together like she thinks he’s going to argue the point or something.

         “Oh, nice to meet you, Acxa.”

         “You already said something like that.”

         Lance shrugs, “Yeah, but studies say the more times you say someone’s name while looking at their face the more likely you are to recognize them later.”

         “Like that guy on Parks and Rec?”

         “Uh, aren’t you a little young for that show?” Lance asks awkwardly, thinking about all the times people have said ‘sex’ on a sitcom whose target demographic is probably not pre-teens.

         She shrugs, “It’s funny.”

         Well he can’t argue with that, he and Keith love Parks and Rec. “But isn’t it – ”

         She gives him a blank stare and he decides to cut his losses and leave the issue of age appropriate television be. “You know what, whatever. It’s cool.”

         She’s frowing at him, staring him down intently (or as intently as a small person with a huge cat on her lap can) and he gets the feeling that she’s moved on to a different topic already. “You know Keith Kogane, right?” she asks after a long moment of them side-eyeing each other.

         “Uh, yeah,” Lance says, eyes cutting to the paperback in her hand, Keith’s paperback, and wondering if Keith reall had gotten through to this kid who’d been dodging all of them like they had the plague, “Yeah, he’s my husband, why?”

         “Huh,” she says, brows pulling together like he’s a puzzle she’s trying to solve from memory, “You like space books.”

         What? Lance blinks at her, “…Yeah, yeah, I do.” _Please don’t tell me this kid is psychic,_ he finds himself thinking because frankly, leave it to freaking _Keith_ to accidentally adopt an actual psychic child.

         She nods as if this confirms all her suspicions. “Keith mentioned it.”

         “Oh.”

         “Do you still like him?”

         Lance has to remind himself that kids are weird and abrupt questions and topic changes are pretty par for the course, “Yeah, duh, he’s awesome, that’s why I married him.”

         She shrugs, “Sometimes married people don’t like each other anymore so they don’t live together or talk much.”

         Lance’s heart hurts a little bit at how casually she said that and he doesn’t know why. “And you care about this why?”

         “Because I need book two and he’s not here,” she says bluntly and Lance has to laugh. She’s just like Keith.

         “And you want me to get it for you.”

         “Well _ask_ first,” she says, sounding a little affronted at the thought of Lance casually stealing his husband’s books.

         He rolls his eyes, “I wasn’t raised in a barn, yeah, I’ll ask first.”

         She nods very seriously, “I started re-reading this one since I don’t have the next one yet. Do you think he’d mind waiting for it until I get the next one?”

         Lance has to smile a little at that, “No, I don’t think he’ll mind.”

         Her lips twitch a bit at the corners as if they want to smile but haven’t quite decided to make the motion yet, “Good. Thank you.”

         Lance nods and moves to get up. He’s doing an internal happy dance at the thought of this kid _talking_ to him and _trusting_ him but he also has a gym full of children wreaking who knows what havoc to get back to. A thought occurs to him, though, and he pauses before leaving, “Hey, I know you like dragon books but, uh, do you like space books too?”

         She looks up from where she’s been studying the patterns in Queenie’s fur. “Yeah,” she says quietly, as if a little ashamed to admit that she likes something.

         “I’ve got some space books you might wanna try.”

         “Are they Star Wars?”

         “Some Star Wars can be arranged,” he grins.

         Her lips twitch into the almost-smile shape again, “I like Star Trek too. The ones with Spock.”

         “Okay-dokie, that’s one order for some Star Wars and some Star Trek with a side of Spock, I’ll see what I can do,” he shoots her finger guns for emphasis and is rewarded with another twitchy almost-smile.

…

         Keith comes home looking like something the cat dragged in, then promptly trips over an actual over-enthusiastic cat and goes sprawling in the entryway with a resounding crash. Lance slides into the front hall bleary-eyed in the fuzzy neon blue socks his nieces gave him for Christmas, nearly falling on his own face as he almost skids into the wall. He catches himself just in time, ending up braced with a hand on each wall, leaning over Keith’s prone body. He hopes it looks cool and intentional but he’s pretty sure he just looks really lucky not to have a broken nose.

         “Hi babe,” he says with a crooked grin anyway because what Lance lacks in grace, he makes up for in style and presentation.

         “Honey, I’m home,” Keith groans from the floor, where Ruby is prodding him with an imperious paw and mewing demands.

         “I feel like we do this a lot,” Lance sighs, shoving himself upright and shooing Ruby away from Keith.

         Keith just makes a drawn-out groaning noise and attempts to melt into the floor.

         “Babe? You okay?”

         “Mrmph.”

         Ruby, sensing weakness as only a cat can, climbs onto Keith’s back, curls up in the hollow between his shoulder blades, and starts chewing on his hair.

         Lance chokes on a giggle.

         “That had better be the cat chewing on my hair,” Keith growls.

         Lance actually laughs out loud at that.

         Laz appears at Lance’s feet, drawn in by the noise from the entryway, meows inquisitively and tries to climb into Keith’s messanger bag, which has fallen open in the aftermath of his fall.

         “Oookay,” Lance sigh-laughs, bending down to gather up Ruby, who shoots him an offended look and goes limp like furry gelatin. Actually, nevermind, furry gelatin is a little too close to moldy jello for comfort. He sets Ruby loose in the hallway; she shoots him another deeply insulted glance and darts away with a skitter of kitten claws on hardwood floor. “Alright, babe, up we go,” Lance leans down again and grabs Keith under the armpits, half-hoisting, half-helping him to his feet.

         “Laz is in my bag,” Keith yawns into Lance’s shoulder.

         “Let’s get you upstairs first, ok?” Lance offers.

         “Lance,” Keith grumbles.

         “Naptime for Keith.”

         “My script is in there.”

         “Take your shoes off, babe.”

         “And all my notes…”

         “Jacket too,” Lance helps him ease the coat off his shoulders over Keith’s protests.

         “And a book,” Keith mumble-yawns.

         “I know, you like long stuff by dead dudes,” Lance agrees amicably.

         “Not only dead dudes,” another yawn rips through Keith’s words, “Diversity of reading material is important.”

         “Yes it is, babe,” Lance says reassuringly, setting aside the coat as a ‘future-Keith’ problem (because let’s be real, Keith’s the one who will lose patience with Lance’s clutter and put it all away first).

         “Anyway, this isn’t a book for me,” Keith explains, trying to toe off his boots and looking confused when they don’t come off easily being…well…boots. It’s a process. “I was going to drop by and see you and leave a book for the kid. The quiet one. I told her I’d give her book two but I couldn’t come in today. I forgot.”

         “It’s okay,” Lance watches Keith slide down the wall to sit on the floor and remove his shoes the long way.

         “No, it’s not,” Keith frowns at the laces as he picks at the knots, “When you promise something to a kid you’ve got to come through on it or it’s worthless.”

         “That’s a little extreme – ”

         Keith looks up at him, eyes bruise-purple and serious in the low light, “No, it’s not.”

         “I’m just saying, it’s not that serious, we can get the book to her tomorrow.”

         “It _is_ that serious,” Keith’s voice is still low but he’s pressing the words into the air in front of him like he wants them to leave a mark, “to a kid who hasn’t had anything consistent, anything they can trust in who knows how long…promises fucking matter.”

         Lance doesn’t know if telling Keith he saw Acxa today would make anything better. Keith is wrung out, tired and brittle with the strain but he probably should know she was asking for him. And her real name.

         “I saw her today, your mystery kid,” Lance offers, almost flinching when Keith’s head snaps up at terrifying speed. Geez, it’s like he can hear Keith’s vertebrae protesting from here. “Coran lent her Queenie. She was reading in the hallway. She likes the books.”

         Keith’s lips press together and turn up at the corners like they do when he wants to smile but isn’t sure if the situation allows for it.

         “And she told me that I had to ask you for book two before I just took it from you to give to her. So. May I, my dear, dear, zombified Keith, borrow book two, so I can give it to a grumpy little girl who has inexplicably bonded with the mother of our furry children?”

         Keith blinks, long and slow, his face doing some sort of weird twitch-spasm thing in response to Lance’s words, “Yeah,” he finally says, “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

         Lance beams at him. “Great. Now we’ve worked that out. No more worries.” He waves his hand over Keith’s head with a little jazz-finger wiggle like he’s the fairy godmother blessing Cinderella before the ball.

         Keith gives him a tired smile and, boots finally off, allows Lance to help him back to his feet and walk with him up to their room. Halfway there he coughs out a chuckle and, shaking his head when Lance shoots him a questioning look, says, “Please dear god never call Coran’s cat ‘the mother of our furry children’ ever again.”  
         “That bad?”

         “Horrifying beyond words.”

…

         If the next few days teach Lance anything, it’s that Acxa reads preternaturally quickly and is full of opinions once you get her talking. She uses a fresh sticky note from Coran’s office as a bookmark for each new book she tackles and when she finds something worth commenting on she pulls a pencil out from behind her ear and neatly notes it on the sticky note. When she finishes one of Lance’s books she solemnly hands it over to him with the marked up sticky note on the cover. “Those are my thoughts,” she says very seriously, “If you’d like a typed version that’ll be three dollars.”

         Lance chokes on his iced tea, “What?”

         She shrugs, “Entreprenurial spirit.”

         Well he can’t exactly argue with that.

…

**To: I <3 Zombies**

Do you need a new assistant?

**To: Cat Mom**

Lance?

Did you change your name in my phone?

**To: I <3 Zombies**

Yes!

I changed yours to ‘I <3 Zombies’

Since it’s tech week

And you’re a zombie right now

**To: Cat Mom**

When I find the facepalm emoji

You’re in for it

**To: I <3 Zombies**

You’re still boycotting emojis, babe

You were pissed about how many plane emojis there were

**To: Cat Mom**

THEY’RE SO UNECESSARY

WHY IS AN AIRPLANE SEAT

A NECESSARY THING

IN TEXTING

EVER????  
OH WAIT.

IT’S NOT.

**To: I <3 Zombies**

I’m texting Adela.

You’re cut off from Red Bull.

Also, ALSO,

You need to see the cute little note Acxa wrote me!!!

[attachedpic.jpg]

**To: Cat Mom**

That’s a handwritten critique of the first book of the Thrawn trilogy

Star Wars, right?

Timothy Zahn

Old Expanded Universe

Not canon anymore?

**To: I <3 Zombies**

Shhhhhh

Let me dream they will put Mara Jade on the silver screen

AnyWAY

LOOK

SHE’S LIKE A MINI-YOU

Do you need an assistant?

Because her handwriting is way better than yours

And she’s got the office supplies obsession already

She’s practically already trained

**To: Cat Mom**

Do you think Lotor wears a wig?

**To: I <3 Zombies**

Holy random comment, Batman

**To: Cat Mom**

He’s sold his soul to the devil

That’s the only explanation

He just wandered by my desk

Casually

But like an asshole

And told me I should ‘really see a specialist about those split ends’

WTF DOES THAT EVEN MEAN???

**To: I <3 Zombies**

You ok, baby?

**To: Cat Mom**

STOP TELLING ADELA NOT TO GIVE ME CAFFIENE

I KNOW THE SODA MACHINE IN THE BASEMENT ISN’T BROKEN

THAT SIGN IS FAKE

AND IN FARID’S HANDWRITING

**To: I <3 Zombies**

Ok, I love you,

I support you,

I’m gonna text later when you’re not crazy

**To: Cat Mom**

[airplane seat emoji]

**To: I <3 Zombies**

Wtf does that even mean?

**To: Cat Mom**

I KNOW, RIGHT???

…

         Axca isn’t sure what she was thinking when she accepted Coran’s offer to accompany the rest of the community center kids on a field trip to the theatre for a backstage tour and a preview of the new play. She’s never been to the theatre, unless school assemblies count (and she’s pretty sure bad puppet shows on the evils of pot and bullying aren’t the same), but she isn’t sure she’d like it anyway. She’s generally wary of things if she’s uncertain about them. Her comfort zone is pretty small and life tends to force her outside of it way too frequently already so she likes to stick with what she knows when she can. But here she is, trailing behind a pack of chattering kids as a tall, exhuberant young man with wild black hair, warm bronze skin, and an angular face meant to wear a million expressions, most some version of a smile. He introduced himself as Farid when they walked in and he’s been touring them around the parts of the theatre not being used by the working cast and crew. The other kids love him, his seemingly endless supply of knock knock jokes, easy banter with Lance, and complete lack of shame charming like instantly.

         Acxa is a little less easy to sway. She doesn’t trust people who smile too much. It’s too easy to hide things behind smiles. Every social worker she’s ever had wore a smile when they met and a smile when they said goodbye and every single one of them meant nothing at all.

         She’s not sure what to make of Coran’s smile, it’s wide and bright but his eyes are old and when they look at her they seem to see so much more than he says. Keith Kogane doesn’t smile much; a mark in his favor, but when he does it feels like Acxa somehow earned it. Lance…Acxa hasn’t decided about Lance. He talks so fast sometimes; it’s hard to keep up. It’s hard to know where the conversation is moving. Like the floor is shifting beneath her feet and she needs to shift with it or she’ll fall.

         Lance probably doesn’t want her to feel that way.

         It’s not his fault.

         Acxa squeezes the straps of her backpack and thinks about books. People are so easy to understand in books. You can look at them from far away and peel back their layers until you see all the little pieces and parts moving inside of them. You can’t do that with real people.

         The other kids are loud and Acxa is falling behind. She doesn’t know if it’s on purpose or not.

…

         Lotor examines himself in the bathroom mirror, running his fingers restlessly over the arch or his cheekbone, making sure the dark circles don’t show. His bones ache with how tired he is. College feels a century ago instead of a decade and a half. How on earth did he used to do tech, sleep two hours, and then run to a full day of classes in the morning? He must have been superhuman.

         He thinks about the stage manager downing red bull like it’s the elixir of life out there. Kogane. He’s been hard on him. Pushing him. Lotor knows he’s _difficult_ that his _perfectionist tendencies_ can be _alienating._ Normally he’d do something nice for the stage manager after a show like this one (a mad scramble from start to finish, _god_ does he never want to direct a bloody musical again) but for some reason he feels like that would just put this man on edge. Lotor smiles a wry, sharp-edged smile at his mirror image. He and Kogane are two of a kind it would seem. Lotor wouldn’t appreciate a soft gesture from someone who’d driven him so hard. He wouldn’t trust it. It would feel cheap and fake.

         There is a relationship forged on grudging acceptance and professional appreciation. They’ll have to battle it out a little while longer before they find a comfortable place to land with each other.

         Lotor gives himself one last look in the mirror. He can almost hear the growl of his father’s voice, “Dress like you’re going into battle every day. Life is a war and you’re here to win it. Understand?”

         Lotor doesn’t feel much like a conqueror. He just feels tired.

         He gives himself another sharp-toothed smile. Time to see if the show looks anything like it should. Time to see if he can make one of the best stage managers he’s worked with in a long time so angry he snaps a pencil in half.

         He’s walking to the theatre with long, purposeful strides when he runs into the girl.

…

         Acxa looks up at the man. He’s tall, with long silvery hair and sharp eyes. “Aren’t you young to have hair that color?” she blurts out because words are weapons and all too often adults get to use them first.

         He snorts in dry amusement, “Aren’t you a little short to be here?”

         “No,” she tells him flatly. “I’m here for the preview.”

         “Huh,” he sizes her up “Who are you with? Where are you supposed to be?”

         “Lance and Coran. The Community Center. And how should I know where I’m supposed to be? I’ve never been here before.”

         A corner of the man’s mouth turns up like he actually thinks she’s funny or something. Whatever. His hair’s still weird. It’s too shiny.

         “I don’t know where your group’s supposed to be, but if you’re one of Lance’s then I’ll just take you to Kogane. They’re practically a hive mind, he’ll be by to pick you up eventually if I leave you with his husband.”

         “Sure,” Acxa agrees because so far this guy hasn’t been too weird or sketchy and he’s probably her best bet for figuring out where to go. Plus she’d rather sit with Kogane than stand surrounded by shouting kids. She gets enough of that at recess, thanks.

         The guy actually chuckles, but with that weird turned-in way that adults do when they’re amused at something in their heads, not something in front of them. “Kogane’s going to love this.”

         Acxa has a feeling like maybe he won’t, but she figures she can’t really do much about that now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. HAPPY PRIDE, FRIENDS!!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL, YOU'RE ALL AMAZING
> 
> This chapter *kicked my ass*. I started it three different times, got several pages into the second version of it, realized every word was like pulling teeth and that I was actually avoiding working on it I hated that draft so much, scrapped the whole thing, started fresh and ended up with what you see in front of you. I HOPE IT'S GOOD, DEAR LORD.
> 
> On a different subject, I've already asked this on Tumblr, but I’m considering adapting pieces of my fic ‘True Love or Something’ into an original fiction novel - any thoughts? Some things would by necessity be very different, if there's enough interest I'll be putting up a post on my tumblr (deerstalkerdeathfrisbee) explaining what I'm thinking for the re-working. Please, please, if anyone is interested in that, TELL ME.
> 
> Unedited and my autocorrect is broken, so go easy on me!
> 
> ***UPDATE***
> 
> HERE'S MY TUMBLR WITH MORE INFO ABOUT THE POTENTIAL RE-WRITE   
> PROJECT:
> 
> https://deerstalkerdeathfrisbee.tumblr.com/post/178207501967/true-love-or-something-revision-more-info

**Chapter 3**

            “Is this yours?” Lotor drawls and Keith regrets giving him a code to unlock the door to the control booth. So what if it was company policy that all directors had access to the control booth while their show was in rehearsal/production? Keith was a trendsetter, a maverick (okay, maybe not a maverick, he looked the word up when Sarah Palin was running for VP and blurting it out every five seconds, and apparently it means ‘runaway cow’ or ‘unbranded calf’ so there’s that). The point was, fuck Lotor, that man should not be able to open doors in Keith’s building.

            Keith spins around in the chair, a coldly neutral response on the tip of his tongue when he sees…

            “Hi Keith.”

            “What are you doing here?” Keith blurts out because Zombie Keith is an asshole.

            “Leaving,” Lotor tosses his hair over his shoulder in an artfully casual gesture. Keith isn’t sure how he still looks so neat and tidy this far into tech week, but he wants to know what pagan gods he sacrificed a goat to under the full moon in order to attain that look. Not because Keith has ever given a shit about how he, himself looks (Lance thinks he’s hot and Shiro’s given up on him ever looking like a functional adult, and that’s the beginning and end of People Whose Opinions Keith Cares About re: Personal Appearance), but because Lotor’s fashionable perfection is sort of like a tower of toys, and Keith’s the kid that just has to shove the whole thing over. There’s no explanation for it. He just wants to topple that sucker right off his Lincoln log pedestal.

            Keith may have some unresolved issues.

            Lotor, meanwhile, whirls out of the room in a rush of smug self-satisfaction and universal disdain.

            Keith and Acxa stare at each other for a long moment.

            “So.” Keith’s brain’s not firing on all cylinders. It’s maybe at 1. 1.5 if the red bull starts kicking in soon. He glances down at his script, then back up at the kid standing uneasily in the doorway, looking like she’s considering bolting. Keith clears his throat, shuffles some papers, and remembers that his light board operator didn’t show up for work today and calling a show is a bitch when you have to remember to press buttons yourself and watch everything onstage. He looks at Acxa, who looks at him like she thinks he’s going to yell at her for breathing. Fuck it. “Do you want to press some buttons and make the lights go?”

            She doesn’t beam or grin or spaz out the way most kids would, but Keith is counting the slightly upturned lips as a win.

…

**GROUP CHAT: McKogane Fam with a Plan**

**Queen of My Heart:** Have any of you peeked into the control booth?

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** Wait, wtf, who changed our chat names? Who is everyone?

**Gorgeous™:** Tony

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** Seriously? That dick, I have the longest name on the planet now!

**Gorgeous™:** No, I’m Tony, dumbass. (I’m guessing this is Farid I’m talking to?)

**Gorgeous™:** Although, tbh, I’m pretty sure Adela and I got drunk listening to _Reputation_ and changed all the names to Taylor Swift songs a few days ago.

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** And you picked this freakin’~Dickensian Novel~ for my name???? And yeah, this is Farid.

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** And how the fuck didn’t we notice this days ago? We text, like, always.

**Gorgeous™:** Tech Week, genius.

**Queen of My Heart:** who needs texting when there’s tech-ing, ayyyy (This is Alyssa btw)

**Queen of My Heart:** Oh god, I’m never texting or saying ‘ayyy’ ever again. I’m not cool enough for it. I think a part of my soul just cringed out of existence.

**Queen of My Heart:** ANYWAY, have you seen the cuteness in the booth???

**Gorgeous™:** Nope, too busy being in Farid’s SPOTLIGHT OF DEATH. I’m going to get heatstroke and PERISH at this rate.

**Don’t Blame Meee:** Farid, get off your phone, stop texting when you’re supposed to be supervising kids.

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** Adela?

**Don’t Blame Meee:** Nope. Lance. Get off your phone. I’m watching you.

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** Goodbye forever, friends. I’m grounded. Mom’s watching my every move.

**End Game:** Don’t make me get the god mic

**Gorgeous™:** WHO PUT KEITH ON THE GROUP CHAT?????

**Queen of My Heart:** EXCUSE, CAN WE RE-FOCUS??????

**End Game:** Don’t any of you have jobs to do?

**Queen of My Heart:** KEITH HAS A MINI-ME IN THE BOOTH. WE’RE BIG SIBLINGS, FAM!!!

**LWYMMD:** Oh god, Tony, why didn’t we fix the names???  
**Gorgeous™:** Idk, I like mine. It’s Accurate.

**LWYMMD:** I’m never drinking with you again.

**Queen of My Heart:** Aww, Adela, I love my new name. <3 <3 <3

**End Game:** DON’T. YOU. HAVE. JOBS. TASKS. THINGS TO DO.

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** OK, I JUST SAW KEITH’S SIDEKICK AND THAT’S THE CUTEST SHIT, WE’RE BIG SIBS, WE’RE BIG SIBS!!!

**Don’t Blame Meee:** Seriously? Do I have to take your phone away?

**End Game:** Lance. I know it’s you, but I mentally heard that in your mom’s voice.

**Don’t Blame Meee:** Oh god, I’m too young to turn into my mom. KEITH, BABE, REMEMBER AS I WAS, YOUNG, FRESH, VIRILE –

**This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things:** LEAVING CONVO, JESUS CHRIST

**Queen of My Heart:** Yeeeeah, this took some weird turns.

**End Game:** The flirting will continue until you all do your jobs.

**Don’t Blame Meee:** Aww, don’t just use me for my body; love me for my mind, Keith!

**End Game:** Quit being a hypocrite and watch your pack of children.

…

            “So when I say ‘standby light cue’ and then a number you say ‘lights’ to acknowledge you heard me, ok? And then when I say ‘lights’ and then a number and ‘go’ you hit that button.”

            “The one that says ‘go’?” 

            “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, but yeah. You hit ‘go’ when I say ‘lights go’.”

            “Cool.” Acxa does not specify whether or not she was being sarcastic. She doesn’t really want to have to admit she’s really nervous and wants to make sure there isn’t some kind of trick to it, that is really was as self-explantory as it seemed. She’s just figured out that if you say supposedly obvious stuff in a really dry voice people tend to think you’re making a joke and don’t see how spooked you really are.

            “You okay with doing this?” Keith doesn’t look at her, keeps fiddling with his script instead, craning the little reading light around to the perfect angle. It’s almost a relief not to have his eyes on her.

            “Yeah,” she says stubbornly because now it’s a challenge. She doesn’t know if Keith thinks she can’t do it or not, or if he even cares one way or another. But now she has to prove to him that she can.

            Keith’s lips twitch up a little, wry, maybe. She’s not sure if he’s smirking at her or at something else, but his eyes are a little far away.

            (He’s smirking at the past-Keith her hears in her voice, but that’s not something she’ll figure out for a very long time.)

            Below them the audience settles in. Ezor and Zethrid, the dance and fight choreographers, lace their fingers together in their seats. Lotor uncaps his unnecessarily fancy pen and flips open his moleskine notebook. The designers send their assistant designers off to the outer edges of the audience seating to check the look of the show from all angles one more time. Lance and Farid’s troop of children settle in for the show.

            “Standby lights 1.1, sound 1.1, and projections 1.1.”

            “Projections.”

            “Sound.”

            And Acxa’s voice, quiet but confident over the headset, “Lights.”

            This is it, this is the thing Keith loves, the rush he’s a little addicted to, that moment, suspended, between action and anticipation. It’s the highest point in a jump, it’s riding the crest of the wave before it crashes to shore, it’s the second before you drop down and your sneakers hit the pavement. It’s the split second where everyone in the theatre holds their breath and into the space between seconds he is the one to whisper “Lights, sound, projections…Go.”

…

            Something shifts after the trip to the theatre. Acxa doesn’t know what it is, but it doesn’t seem bad, so she’s willing to let it go for now. Keith keeps bringing her books and Lance keeps trying to sell her on the merits of space opera and sci-fi over fantasy. It’s an uphill battle, mostly because Acxa’s put _Temeraire_ on pause to devour every Tamora Pierce book ever written and she’s willfully blind to all other genres at the moment.

            “My friend Allura recommended this series,” Keith had said, holding out four battered paperbacks, their spines flaking away where someone had folded them open again and again, the edges of the pages soft with a thousand turnings, “It’s a quartet, but there are a bunch of other books set in the same world and timeline that come after this series. It has knights and magic and I think there’s a telepathic cat in book two or something. And lots of women kicking the patriarchy’s ass, which sounds pretty cool.”

            “Are you allowed to say ‘kicking the patriarchy’s ass’ to kids?” Acxa had asked.

            Keith had shrugged, unperturbed, “I dunno, my mom used to say stuff like that to me all the time when I was half your age. But she also believed in aliens and thought bar fights were a legitimate form of exercise, so who knows.”

            Acxa had considered him for a moment before concluding, “Aliens seem pretty plausible, to be honest. Just, why would they visit Earth? Do they not have obesity and global warming in space?”

            Keith had shrugged again, “The world is full of mysteries,” he held out the books to her, apparently done with the topic of aliens for now, “Give the books a try, let me know what you think.”

            The next day Acxa turned up at the community center, finished first book in hand, to ask Lance, “Can Keith teach me how to use a sword?”

            Lance still isn’t sure if saying “Probably, that seems like a Keith thing to me,” is something that will get him reported to Child Services for endangering a minor. Or endangering a Keith. Acxa seems pretty scrappy.

            Of course, then he wanders into a classroom in the Community Center one afternoon to see all the tables pushed to the side and Keith demonstrating basic strikes and parries with a lightweight rapier while Acxa mimicked him with her own sword. Lance considers just walking straight back out again and claiming plausible deniability, but his brain-to-mouth filter must be defective today because he blurts out, “Since when do you sword-fight?” instead of fleeing like a sensible person would.

            “I learned some knife tricks when I was with my mom as a kid,” Keith says, not pausing a second, sword singing through the air the way rapiers and smallswords tend to. “And I picked up stage combat in high school. I knew a guy on the fencing team in college. And Zethrid’s teaching me some stuff at work. I think she wants to start a club or something.”

            Oh sweet Jesus, his husband’s joining a theatre fight club.

            “Um. As much as I love you making friends on your own…have you run this idea by Shiro to make sure it’s not going to get you stabbed? Because I like you nice and, um, not stabbed. No perforations on my person, please. Or, well, your person since it’s your body and that’s the phrase. But, like, you’re my person, as in we’re like legally wed in the eyes of the law and my moms, so that’s not going away any time soon…BUT NOT LIKE I OWN YOU…or anything. Cuz that’d be weird. Ahem.”

            Two pairs of eyes are giving him the patented Keith Kogane Blank Stare of Incredulity, so that’s fun.  They’ve both stopped moving too, and are just standing there, heads slightly tipped to the side, swords at rest, tips of the blades planted on the tops of their feet like a pair of posturing Muskateers.

            “Are you supposed to be putting the pointy part on your foot like that?” Lance blurts out because more babbling will definitely help here.

            “Rapiers and smallswords are light-weight and easily bent. When at rest they should be in contact with a body part so you’ll feel if you put too much pressure on the blade,” Keith explains, Acxa nodding along gravely.

            Lance decides that, late or not, voluntary and blessed ignorance is the path of least resistence. “Oookay. Have fun with that, no punching holes in your feet and no stabbing each other, okay, legally I didn’t see any of this because oh god, the waivers involved, all right, love you, bye!”

            And he skedaddles. Like a brave person.

…

            Acxa cuts a glance at Keith in the wake of Lance’s disappearing act.

            “He loves everyone,” Keith says, “very big on universal love. He tells his coffee he loves it every morning. He confessed his undying devotion to a bagel yesterday.”

            Acxa blinks, long and slow.

            “But he definitely has a soft sport for you. So. Take that as you will.”

            Silence and then a quiet, “Can you show me how to disarm someone again?”

            Keith’s mouth twitches towards a smile, “Sure.”

…

            “Did I just tell a random kid I loved them on accident when I was saying the most awkward goodbye in the world to you?” Lance asks at the grocery store. He’s being about as helpful as running shoes on a fish, standing on the bottom rail of the cart, hands gripping the sides, facing Keith as he trundles along, considering the merits of fresh versus canned beans.

            “She was fine with it,” Keith reminds him, deciding that soaking dry beans is a pain in the ass neither of them need and grabbing a can off the shelf.

            “But it was weird.”

            “You’re always weird.”

            “Thanks ever so much, dearest.”

            Keith shrugs and grabs another can. Always good to have canned goods around in case of an emergency. “I like weird.”

            “Well I would hope so,” Lance rolls his eyes and rocks back on the cart, dragging it forward and slowing it down all at the same time, “Because if you married me for my money, you’re going to be disappointed.”

            Keith gives him a deadpan stare that should not be so effective while comparing the merits of organic versus store-brand canned beans, “I knew I should have gone after a young lady of fortune.”

            “Yeah, I’m definitely Elizabeth Bennet in this situation,” Lance says, “And you should get the organic ones.”  
            “The store brand is two dollars cheaper.”

            “But we have a coupon for the organic ones.”

            “You grabbed that paper when we came in and it’s from two weeks ago.”

            “Still, a coupon!”  
            “Stop waving the paper in my face,” Keith glares at the beans like they personally offended him before returning the store brand to the shelf and loading the organic beans into the cart.

            Lance grins, smug, before returning to the conversation at hand, “So it really wasn’t bad-weird?”

            Keith sighs and gives him one of his rare genuine looks, “That kid doesn’t have enough love in her life right now. At least now she knows some community center weirdo is rooting for her.”

            “Aww, be still my heart, Romeo.”

            “Bad example, they both die in the end.”

            “Aww, be still my heart, Rosalind.”

            “I know you think making obscure references is cute, but she’s literally never onstage and could have ended miserable for all we know.”

            “Nah, I have a fan-theory that she’s actually the same Rosalind from _As You Like It_ and her relationship with Orlando is the fluffy sequal to R&J’s tragedy,” Lance grins cheekily and Keith stares at him, dumbfounded.

            “I have possibly never been more attracted to you.”

            “Aww, I knew you loved me for my mind – mrmph – KEITH, okay, more kissing, this is cool.” 

…

            There’s a new girl at school.

            Acxa normally wouldn’t care – her main scholastic goal is and has pretty much always been keeping her head down as much as possible. She’s never been bullied – establishing a degree of dominance tempered with apathy over the reiging schoolyard ringleaders has always ensured that. Most will leave you alone if a.) you aren’t an easy target or, failing that, b.) if you don’t respond the way they want you to. The handful of times she’s had to take drastic action have landed her in the principal’s office, yes, but no bully is willing to touch you if you literally bite them.

            She’d mostly been left alone by default at this school.  This, of course, couldn’t last forever. By the time one of the many power cliques bothered to take notice of her, however, Acxa was more than prepared. The incident would not be repeated.

The leader of the pack of Sporty Cool Girls had demanded Acxa “share” her lunch with her and her cronies, punctuating the request with a forceful shove. Acxa had said “Sure” before systematically taking each item out of her lunch, dropping them on the ground and stomping on them until nothing remained by roadkill PB&J and chip crumbs. “All yours” she’d told the girl (Lexi? Becki? Jodi? Kodi? Something ending in “i not y!” as the girl perkily informed the teacher doing roll call) and walked away. Acxa spent the rest of the day hungry and pissed, but the scrunched-up faces from the Sporty Girls and the way they backed away from her with muttered “what a psycho”s more than made up for it.

When she showed up at the Community Center that night Keith heard her stomach grumble, frowned, grabbed her by the hood of her sweatshirt and hauled her into the gym, plunking her down in front of Lance and Coran.

“Feed her.”

“Why hello to you too, Keith.”

Keith had turned to Acxa, “Why didn’t you eat lunch?”

Feeling cranky and belligerent from not getting enough to eat, and even crankier and more belligerent from someone daring to _notice_ and call her on it, Acxa folded her arms and glared. “Who says I didn’t eat lunch?”

Coran had made a small, amused sound, and turned to Lance, “You’re quite correct, the resemeblance is uncanny.”

Keith and Acxa turned identical glares on the moustachioed man and Lance choked on his juice box.

“Acxa,” Keith said flatly, meeting her glower-for-glower until her will crumbled a little bit and she finally muttered an answer.

“I had to prove a point to some bullies.”

“Hunger strikes barely worked for Ghandi, kid,” Lance had said, “Next time pack a second lunch if the first is gonna be a casualty of war.” And then he’d dumped enough fruit snacks, juice boxes and individually packaged Keebler Elf cheese crackers on her to feed an insulin-dependent army.

But the warm fuzzy feeling she gets (suspicious, suspicious, bad, bad, the last time she felt this way about a family didn’t end well – it ended with another rejection, and this one actually hurt because she’d thought hope wasn’t always for suckers) when her mind wanders to the Community Center isn’t the point. There’s a new girl at school and she’s going to get picked on soon.

Not the first day. Probably not even the second, third, or fourth. The first week or so, she’s probably safe. They’re always watching the new kids too closely the first week and a bit for any but the stupidest bullies to dare take a shot at them. But it’s coming and Acxa hates the fact that she might actually care this time.

            The new girl’s name is Narti. She’s small for her age, with a sharp pointy chin and soft round cheeks and long graceful fingers. She’s angles and elbows all over and she wears the most beautiful headscarfs all in shades of purple and blue. She’s blind and her dark glasses are purple-tinted too, with dark blue metal frames. She carries a cane for walking and she records the teacher’s lectures. There’s a TA who’s been helping her navigate the hallways and find her way to the lunchroom.

            Everything she does is graceful and beautiful and Acxa kind of wants to learn Braille because when Narti reads, her fingers skimming the pages like she’s conducting the words, Acxa imagines she hears music play.

            The new girl’s going to get the crap kicked out of her.

            Narti is quiet and shy and has to go to a special class every other day to get help from a speech therapist. She’s blind and she’s brand new and 11 and 12 year olds are notorious for pouncing on your deepest insecurities. Acxa is convinced her classmates can smell weakness like sharks smell blood in the water.  It’s why Acxa never shows any cracks in her armor. She can’t afford it.

            And that’s why Acxa is here at the theatre, demanding to see Keith Kogane. The woman she asks is small and slender with curtains of dark blonde hair and a sweet, heart-shaped face. Acxa thinks she looks a little bit like Rapunzel and wonders if she can kick people’s asses with a frying pan. Acxa hopes she can. This chick looks like she could use some self-defense mojo on her side. Maybe Acxa should recommend Keith’s Community Center classes.

            “Where’s Keith Kogane’s office?” Acxa asks, knowing it’s always best to get the point with adults. Otherwise they waste time asking who you are and how you got there and where your mother/father/parent-and-or-gaurdian is.

            “Um, is he expecting you?”

            “No.”  
            “Are you here for some kind of school thing?” the woman asks, looking around Acxa like somehow a class of other 11-and-12-year-olds will appear to make everything make sense.

            “No. I’m here to talk to Keith Kogane. Who are you?” Might as well try to turn this conversation around on her.

            The woman raises a pair of questioning eyebrows. “I’m Alyssa, I work here.”

            Acxa nods, that makes sense. “I’m Acxa. I worked here once, but it was kind of a one-time thing. And Keith paid me in microwave pizza rolls.”

            Alyssa stares at her for a long moment before some kind of realization apparently dawns and she says, “Oh, oh my god, I remember you! You were our mini-Keith during Preview!” 

            Acxa doesn’t know what to say to that, but she nods anyway because she seems to be getting somewhere with her plan to see Kogane now. “Yeah.”

            “Okay, I’ll show you to Keith’s office,” Alyssa offers, “I have got to tell the guys about this,” she adds in an undertone and Acxa decides not to ask.

            Alyssa drops her off at Keith’s office and even gives her a Ziploc bag full of trail mix, “In case he’s grumpy and needs a bribe,” before departing.

            Acxa ponders the trail mix.  Ziplocs are re-sealable. She could totally pick all the M&Ms out if she wanted to. But no, she’s on a mission, Narti’s well-being takes priority over chocolate. 

            She knocks on the door.

...

**GROUP CHAT: McKogane Fam with a Plan**

**Actual Disney Princess:** GUYS, GUYS, MINI-KEITH IS BACK!!!!

**F-Bomb:** WHAT.

**F-Bomb:** DID KLANCE ADOPT AND NOT TELL US????????

**Gorgeous™:** I can’t believe you all changed your names. Adela and I worked hard on those.

**Mom:** Chill, kids, Acxa’s one of my Community Center kiddos. She and Keith have bonded over books and hating the world. Also punching people.

**Mom:** It’s not nearly as concerning as it sounds, I swear.

**Mom:** Wait, what the fuck, WHY AM I THE MOM?????

**F-Bomb:** Because you feed us and take care of us and love us unconditionally?

**Hold Plz** : I can change it if u want, Lance?

**Gorgeous™:** Did Adela just use txt-spk?

**Hold Plz:** *you

**F-Bomb:** Ah, all is right with the universe again.

**Actual Disney Princess:** Wow, way to get off-track, fam.

**F-Bomb:** Why you expect any better from us at this point is the real mystery here.

…

            Keith looks up to see Acxa staring at him intently, holding a bag of trail mix. Probably from Alyssa’s lunch.

            “Did you steal one of my employees’ lunch?” Keith blurts out before he can reconsider.

            “No, she gave it to me in case I needed to bribe you into being nice to me.”

            Keith does not face-palm because he is a grown adult man but he does pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers and sigh heavily. “What can I help you with?”

            “I need to know how to protect someone.”

            “From what?”

            “Bullies.”

            “What are they doing?” Keith really hopes this isn’t one of those heavily hypothetical conversations where Acxa’s the one getting bullied. Because then Keith would have to kick some serious sixth-grader ass and he’s pretty sure that’s not allowed.

            “They haven’t done anything yet.”

            Oh god, he’s managed to teach an 11 year old about preemptive strikes. He’s probably going to parenting hell. Which is fine, of course, because there’s no way in hell he’s a parent, ever, at all, haha, what a funny joke…yeah, he’s definitely going to hell one way or another. “Okay, so what are you attempting to accomplish here?”

            Acxa frowns at him, her little face folding into lines of sharp displeasure, “I told you. I need to know how to protect someone from bullies.”

            Keith sighs, how the FUCK has Shiro survived nearly 30 years of Keith’s _everything_? Attempting to channel is older brother’s nurturing mojo, Keith drags in another breath and says, “Okay, we’re gonna have to start at the beginning.”

…

            Lance comes home to Keith planking on the floor of their living room, Ruby curled up between his shoulder-blades, and Laz trying to jump onto the backs of his calves. Fine beads of sweat stand out at his temples and dark strands of hair slip free of the messy ponytail at the back of his head and Lance kiiind of wants to lick him.

            He thought the sheer animal rip-each-other’s-clothes-off-with-their-teeth part of the relationship would have died or at least taken a pharmacy’s worth of chill pills after this many years together, but apparently not. That’s good to know.

            “Hi, hello, how are you? Sexy, that’s how you are, very sexy,” Lance babbles because Lance knows what he is at this point in his life and suave is not it. Luckily being together so long means that Keith is either immune to the verbal car crashes that come out of Lance’s mouth and/or for some reason find them attractive.

            Keith is a strange and beautiful man.

            Keith is a strange and beautiful man who is currently frowning up at him from where he is still planking on the living room floor. His fitted black t-shirt leaves very little to the imagination, but what’s left of Lance’s imagination is going _wild_.

            “I was doing push-ups,” Keith frowns, “But then Ruby fell asleep on me. And now I’m afraid to knock her off.”

            Okay, Lance should really get used to the emotional whiplash that is living with Keith Kogane. Because he’s gone from vaguely turned on to heart-meltingly endeared in like two seconds, which is Not Fair. “Aww, you big softie.”

            Keith’s frown intensifies, “Could you pick her up? I’ve been like this for half an hour.”

            Well that explained the beads of sweat. And is pretty hot.

            Lance pauses to consider the picture in front of him. The little cat contentedly snoozing, his husband stretched out on the floor, muscles bunching and straining.

            “LANCE.”

            “Okay, okay, far be it from me to enjoy the picture.”

            Lance picks Ruby up, who protests the movement with a soft “purr-ow” and twists free, dropping onto the floor, rubbing against his legs once and running off, Laz tearing after her.

            Keith drops down, knees hitting the floor, curled toes levering him up into a standing position with an unfair amount of grace. He stretches, popping his back and shoulders back into place and shaking out his neck, before walking over to where Lance is too-obviously enjoying the show and gives him a soft hello kiss, one hand gently curving over the column of his throat, thumb brushing lightly against the hinge of his jaw.

            “Hi sexy,” he whispers against Lance’s lips after he pulls away.

            “Oh my god, THAT IS JUST RUDE!” Lance protests as Keith, the tease, pulls away laughing and presses a kiss to his forehead before turning toward the kitchen. “I come home, blantantly admire your gorgeous physique, and you get all snippy and demanding, only to turn around to flirt _better_? Rude! Rude and un-called for!” 

            Keith’s laugh drifts toward him from the kitchen and Lance flings himself after him, “YOU ARE RIDICULOUS, KEITH KOGANE!”

            “Love you too,” Keith says from the fridge, where he’s pulling out the ingredients for…

            “Are you making frittata?” Lance asks, hoping he already knows the answer to the question.

            Keith raises an eyebrow at him, eggs in one hand, spinach in the other, “I sure hope so,” he deadpans.

            Lance shakes his head and throws his hands up in the air. “I give up, I can’t out-husband you.”

            Keith sets the ingredients down on the counter and moves over to where Lance has dramatically flung himself into one of their kitchen chairs. He leans his hip against the edge of the table, arms loosely folded in front of him, looking down at Lance with a slight smirk of his face. “I didn’t realize it was a competition.”

            Lance rolls his eyes, “I married a so-hot-he’s-probably-from-space guy who does nice shit like try to make Allura’s amazing frittata every few weeks. Gotta try to keep up.”

            Keith snorts softly and leans down so they’re in each other’s space but not actually touching. “Is this one of those times where you’re really insecure or are you just kidding?” he asks, voice serious.

            Lance gives him a little crooked half-smile, “Eh, mostly kidding. But seriously, you’re insanely awesome, babe.”

            Keith tilts his head to the side a tiny bit, “And you’re stunningly beautiful and have the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. Plus, I’m an asshole. So it kind of evens out.”

            “Don’t call yourself an asshole,” Lance pokes him in the chest mutinously.

            “Don’t doubt yourself so much,” Keith counters easily, pecking him on the lips again before turning back to the food on the kitchen counter.

            Lance smiles at his retreating back. He hasn’t been thinking about Carly’s words nearly so much lately, the doubt and confusion fading to a background buzz in his mind, almost completely forgotten. But he can’t help but think they’ve got a good thing going here, while thinking at the exact same time that Keith would make an amazing father.

            He’s shaken out of his reverie a few mintues later by Keith saying, out of the blue, “So Acxa has her first crush and hasn’t realized it yet.”

            Lance, who had been taking a sip of water, chokes like the majestic creature he definitely is not. “WHAT?”

            Keith offers him one of those sneaky little half-smiles he mostly saves just for Lance, “There’s a new girl at school. She’s quiet and blind and Acxa came to the theatre _very_ concerned about how to best protect her from bullies today.”

            “How did she get to the theatre?” Lance demands. Priorites. Child safety is one of them.

            “Took the bus,” Keith frowns, “I don’t like it, but I guess it’s better than a taxi?”

            Lance does not bang his head on the table but he does sigh heavily, “Okay, so what did you tell her?”

            “I told her to make friends with the new girl.”

            “…okay…” That was wildly out of character for Keith Kogane, but Lance is willing to go with it.

            Keith shrugs, apparently not noticing Lance’s skepticism. “It kills two birds with one stone.  Being the new kid sucks. Especially when everyone has outgrown the ability to make instant friends with the nearest kid who likes the same cartoons/toys/picture books as you. And especially when everyone else is already settled into pre-teen cliques. Acxa doesn’t have any friends at school,” Keith is aggressively slicing bell peppers, Lance can hear the harsh thud-thud-thud of the knife hitting the chopping board, “And the new girl definitely won’t. No one’s bullied Acxa since the lunch incident. If Acxa sticks with the new girl, she gets to get to know her crush like a normal person and she can act as a human shield between the new kid and any bullies. Win-win.”

            “What about the crush thing?” Lance asks. He remembers the agony of having a crush at that age. Hell, his crushes were all sad, hopeless, low-key pathetic things basically from age 12 to 20, when he finally (thank god) began to grow into his limbs and his looks.

            Keith shakes his head, “I don’t think she realizes it’s even a crush. It could just be really genuine admiration. Either way, once she gets to know Narti as a friend, not a person to admire from afar, her feelings will evolve.”

            Lance gapes at his husband, “When did you get so _wise_?”

            Keith frowns at him over a pile of perfectly diced peppers before moving on the onions, “I’ve been channeling Shiro all afternoon. It’s been a really uncomfortable experience.”

            Lance cackles, and pulls out his phone, “Okay, okay, say that again so I can film it and Snapchat it to Allura.” 

            Keith throws diced bell peppers at him. It’s totally worth it.

…

            Acxa is _mad_. Madder than mad. She has transcended to a whole new level of anger. She practically vibrates with restrained fury. She barges into the theatre, marching through the lobby, backpack thumping unevenly against her spine, tossing a casual “Hey Alyssa, thanks for the trail mix,” when she passes the blonde in a small knot of other young adults.  She heads straight to Keith’s office with the accuracy of a heat-seeking missile and throws open his door.

            “I HATE THE FOSTERS,” she yells, chucking her backpack on the ground and curling up in Keith’s guest chair, dragging her backpack up onto her lap and curling around it. When no one answers, her head pops up and she realizes with a burst of chagrin that Keith isn’t at his desk. He must have just left, a cup of coffee is cooling next to his computer, which is showing his screen saver – a photo of two kittens piled on top of each other, one a blue-ish grey, the other rusty ginger, soft and fluffy and sleeping with their eyes squinted shut.

            No one can stay completely mad while staring at kittens. Acxa scrunches her body down ino the chair and hugs her stupid pink backpack tighter. Her head hurts; angry tears prick at the corners of her eyes. She presses her face against her backpack’s rough fabric, the zipper undoubtedly leaving zig-zag designs on her cheek.

            She doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the thin wintry light drifting in from the windows reminds her it’s still morning and she still didn’t get enough sleep last night. And slowly, gently, like stepping into a warm pond, she’s dozing off.

…

            “Acxa,” a familiar voice brings her back to the land of the living.

            She blinks her eyes open to see Keith’s familiar face as he kneels beside her chair. He’s not touching her, and she wonders at that. Most adults would have shaken her awake, thinking nothing of it. She would have punched most adults for it.

            But Keith and Lance have always been better at learning her than other adults.

            “What’s going on, kid?” Keith asks. His eyes are the color of stormclouds or bruises. Acxa has never really paid attention to them before. They’re a strange color. They remind her a little bit of her mother. Her mother had dark eyes, blue-grey-black and mysterious. She thinks. It’s hard to remember exactly how they looked now. The last time they’d seen each other they’d been bloodshot and vacant. Uncaring.

            Acxa presses her face against her backpack, inhaling the artificial smell of it. “The power went out last night. My alarm didn’t go off. The fosters didn’t wake me up. I missed the bus to school. And there wasn’t any food for me to make my lunch. And they didn’t sign my permission slips for the in-class science labs and they didn’t show up for parent-teacher conferences and when my teacher called them they said I didn’t tell them about them but I DID, and now I’m in trouble and I can’t do the science lab but it doesn’t matter because I can’t get to _school_ at all.” 

            “Wow,” Keith shakes his head, “that really sucks.” 

            That’s exactly what Acxa needed to hear. She didn’t realize it until now. She’s maybe never realized it, but all she’s wanted for so, so long is someone to just know how much it _sucks_ being the new kid, the last priority, the one with the too-new or too-old stuff, the one who’s forgotten until she’s too much trouble.

            She doesn’t mean to throw herself at Keith, but she flings her arms around his neck and _bawls_ into his shoulder. Sobs _rip_ themselves out of her chest and she imagines she can feel the meaty, visceral _tear_ as they come. She’s scream-crying, she’s angry, she’s hurting and empty and too full and so SAD it’s killing her.

            She doesn’t know how long she clings to Keith and cries like the world is ending, but she does until it ebbs into shuddery, snotty little whimpers into his shirt. As her own noise fades, Acxa realizes Keith’s resting a hand on her shoulder-blades and he’s saying softly, over and over again. “I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.” 

            “My mom was in jail,” Acxa chokes out, “She kept, she used to get really drunk and forget about me for like, days. I think she started doing drugs or something, I don’t know. She went to jail and they stuck me in foster care. She got out and…and she didn’t come for me first. She didn’t come get me. She went to this bar she used to work at and got drunk and then…and then she, she crashed somebody’s car into a _tree._ She wasn’t supposed to be driving. She was supposed to _come get me_.”

            “My mom’s car got struck my lighting when I was fifteen,” Keith says, soft, his hand a heavy anchor on her upper back, “I was in foster care for a while before my brother Shiro found me.”  
            Acxa sniffs, sucking a bunch of plegm back into her head and feeling pretty gross about it, gross enough she almost laughs but doesn’t because she’s not sure if she’d start crying more if she did, “It sucks, doesn’t it?”

            “It really, really does,” Keith agrees.

            “I wanted to go to school today,” Acxa mutters into his shoulder. The arm of the chair she’s sitting in is digging into her stomach and it hurts but she doesn’t want to let go, “I’ve been sitting with Narti at lunch and reading chapters from ‘Alanna: the First Adventure’ to her. She really likes it. We listen to music together after school while she’s waiting for her mom to pick her up. She likes _Hamilton_ and the _Mean Girls_ Broadway soundtrack. I think we’re friends.” 

            Keith squeezes her shoulder and gently disentangles them, brushing her hair out of her face, freeing it from where it’s stuck to the tears. He hands her a packet of tissues from his desk and lets her blow her nose and wipe her face.

            While she’s cleaning herself up he stands, turning off his computer, tossing his coffee in the trash and grabbing his messenger bag.

            “Come on, kid,” he tells her, “Grab your backpack. I can take you to school.”

            “You have to work.”

            Keith shrugs, “I do what I want.”

            Acxa’s stomach growls and Keith tips his head to the side, considering.

            “Want to get lunch on the way?”

            She’s not sure what makes her say it but she presses her lips together and asks, “Can Alyssa and Lance and Alyssa’s friends come too?”

            Keith blinks, surprised. “Sure, why?”

            “They’re loud and happy, I’m not. I figure they could help.”

            Keith gives her the kind of smile she can’t quite understand, like she’s said something he knows more deeply than she expects. “Yeah, sounds good.” 

…

**GROUP CHAT: McKogane Fam with a Plan**

**Luke, I am Your Father:** INTERNS, GET YOUR ASSES DOWN TO THE LOBBY, ACXA IS SAD SO WE’RE GETTING PANCAKES

**F-Bomb:** Wtf, KEITH????  
**Hold Plz:** He’s part of the fam, Farid.

**Actual Disney Princess:** I’m in! I’ll go wake up Tony.

**Gorgeous™:** I’M NOT SLEEPING IN THE GREEN, ROOM, I’M AWAKE, IT’S FINE, DON’T LOOK AT ME

**Mom:** DON’T FORGET ME, I WANT PANCAKES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 9/18
> 
> MY TUMBLR WITH MORE INFO ABOUT THE POTENTIAL RE-WRITE   
> PROJECT:
> 
> https://deerstalkerdeathfrisbee.tumblr.com/post/178207501967/true-love-or-something-revision-more-info
> 
> If response is positive I may post a sneak-peek type thing featuring the story with the new characters. Lemme know if this floats anyone's boat.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not forging your foster parents’ signatures,” Keith sighs.   
> “Don’t be Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” she scolds.  
> “First off, do I look like Dame Maggie Smith? No. Second, this is a field trip, not blanket permission to visit Hogsmede unsupervised while a suspected murderer is on the loose.”   
> “So the stakes are lower already!” Acxa argues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI EVERYONE THANK YOU FOR READING THIS :) 
> 
> Hahaha, this update is late. Oh well. Real life happens. 
> 
> For anyone wondering about the TLoS original fiction project, yes it's still happening! I'm working on it right now :) 
> 
> I'm considering posting a snippet from the original fiction piece somewhere for people to preview but idk. Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions about the project, I may be very slow to respond because I'm pretty inconsistent in my tumblr usage but I REALLY APPRECIATE ALL THE SUPPORT ALL YOU LOVELY HUMANS GIVE ME, I'M JUST BUSY AND ANXIOUS AND DON'T ALWAYS KEEP UP WITH ONLINE CORRESPONDENCE. 
> 
> I have seen season 8, so no worries about spoiling anything for me. I haven't done my usual post-season text post rehashing my thoughts on the season yet. But short version is the animation was really stunningly lovely, I didn't agree with every single creative decision made but I did enjoy a number of things about the season and am all for fostering positivity in this fandom so no rants here. I low-key ship Veronica/Acxa now, Ezor/Zethrid is definitely canon (yay! Badass alien lady pirates!), Kinkade is a delight, would pay to see a spinoff show about Hunk's galactic culinary career, all the kiddos have grown so much as characters since season one. *wipes tear*

**Chapter 4**

            Acxa wasn’t really expecting much after the pancake breakfast. Keith had already done enough, more than enough, more than she’s ever expected anyone to ever do for her. He handed her the menu and told her to order whatever she wanted and when she went for the cheapest thing he asked if she wanted extra bacon. Farid dumped extra everything on her plate from his own and when the waitress re-filled Alyssa’s orange juice she pushed the glass over to Acxa and told her she could have it. They were loud and bright and Tony hassled Keith over his coffee intake and Adela laughed her warm, rich laugh and it was probably the nicest she’d felt in a long time. Lance showed up about halfway through, stole a strip of bacon off his husband’s plate, stuffed the whole thing in his mouth in one go and squished into place next to Keith like the booth was designed to fit this many grown adults and he wasn’t practically in Keith’s lap.

            It was perfect.

            And Acxa doesn’t get much in the way of perfection so she’s not really expecting anything else.

            But then Keith’s car is pulling up at the middle school where she’s sitting with Narti, sharing one set of earbuds between them as they wait for the crowds to die down so they can take the bus together, and he’s rolling down the window and saying “Hey, need a lift?”

            Acxa’s head shoots up so fast her earbud pops out of her ear.

            “Where are you going?” she asks.

            Keith shrugs, “Anywhere. Do you need a ride or not?”

            “Can you take me to the Community Center and Narti home?” Acxa asks. Narti’s cold fingers wrap around hers and squeeze her thanks. Narti doesn’t like to talk to strangers much, she stutters and stumbles and it can take ages for her to get words out, especially when she’s nervous. She goes to speech therapy every other day and it seems to help a bit but she still doesn’t like to let her voice out where other people might misunderstand.

            “Sure, hop in,” Keith agrees easily like he’s always given Acxa lifts to and from school, like this isn’t completely out of the ordinary as far as she’s concerned.

            “It’s Keith,” Acxa explains to Narti, looking back where her friend gazes sightlessly just over Acxa’s left shoulder. Some people might find it unnerving, but it’s a little easier for Acxa not to have to meet someone’s eyes. Eye contact makes her jumpy sometimes, makes her feel scrutinized and picked apart.

            “Okay,” Narti says softly and it’s Acxa’s turn to squeeze her hand.

            Together they gather their things and crawl into the backseat of Keith’s car.

            “Where to?” he asks.

            Acxa rattles off Narti’s address and then, in moment of boldness born of pancakes and hugs and a strange feeling of kinship she can’t explain, she grins and says “Drive on, Jeeves!”

            Keith laughs and does just that.

…

            Somehow this becomes the new normal. Keith picks Acxa up from school every day and takes her to the Community Center or the theatre before going back to work. The fosters either don’t know or don’t care. Acxa had already been taking the bus back from school every day and just getting off on the stop closest to the community center, then hopping on the city bus to get home by dinner time.

            She still doesn’t like participating in the big group activities with the other kids at the Community Center. They scare her, the other kids. She likes being invisible. She likes how a book can double as a doorway to another world and a shield against this one. When she wants to be around people she goes to the theatre and sorts gels and wraps cables with Farid or runs lines with Tony and the other actors or helps Alyssa in the costume studio. The costume studio is probably her favorite. It’s calm there, the stitchers chatting softly at their sewing machines and worktables, classic jazz drifting out from the costume designer’s open office door.  Alyssa is teaching Acxa how to use a sewing machine and how to do different hand stitches using swatches of scrap fabric. When they need extra hands gluing sequins on skirts or re-attaching buttons on coats, Acxa is there, feeling very important as she runs small hands over rich fabrics and wonders where they’ll be worn, and how, and by who.

            She spends a lot of time following Coran around at the Community Center too, listening to his steady stream of chatter and series of increasingly unbelievable stories. Born in New Zealand, he spent years living in Australia, apparently mostly fending off the wildlife. He’d spent a few years in England and a few more wandering across Europe. He’d led weeklong backpacking adventure tours all over the United States, and spent summers sleeping under the stars in Alaska. He tells her all about the various animals that could and did try to kill him when he was living in Australia and the time a translation error in Russia nearly got him detained at customs.  His stories lead her through jungles in Brazil and deserts in Egypt. She travels the world with every story and only picks up more questions along the way.

            “How did you end up here?” she asks one day, holding a long fluorescent lightbulb and staring up a ladder to where Coran struggles to get the burnt-out one out of its sockets.

            “Hmm? What now?” he asks distractedly.

            She almost shuffles her feet but remembers something Keith said in a self-defense class many weeks before; _‘plant your feet, a steady base is the difference between getting knocked down with the first hit and winning with the last’._ She plants her feet. She’s going to have a steady base if she has to build it herself. “You’ve just lived all these amazing places and done all these things. This town just seems kind of…small…for you.”

            Coran hums, hands stilling on the burnt-out bulb, a furrow puckering between his ginger brows. “I suppose you could say small is a relative term. I’ve been to plenty of places so big they feel like they’ll swallow you whole. There’s something very comforting about the small-scale life. It reminds you where you are and who you are, that it does.”

            “I don’t get it.” Acxa hates admitting that, but she doesn’t mind so much when it’s Coran. He doesn’t seem like the type to judge. Not considering how many times she’s witnessed him throw up his hands at a problem, declare it unsolvable, and flounce off, only to zip back to it in five minutes with “a breakthrough of epic proportions, I’m sure of it!”.

            Coran shrugs, “I started to feel a little lonely and irrelevant after a while. Instead of getting smaller the world just got bigger with every mile. I felt lost. There’s something no one tells you about independence – it can be very isolating walking solely to the beat of your own drum. And then, well, a friend of mine died.”

            Acxa doesn’t know what to say to that, so she just makes a sympathetic, wordless sound. That must be good enough because Coran doesn’t stop talking.

            “His name was Alfor and we grew up together. I didn’t think there’d ever be a time without him in my life. That was how much a part of me he was. And then, like that, he was gone. His passing punched a hole in the world for me. And I decided I needed to change the old life up if I wanted it to feel like it meant anything!” Coran gives her a bright, brave smile, the smile of a man who has lived through his heartbreak and come out the other side with an aching scar and a will to move forward, “I came back here, to where his daughter was attending university and here I stayed.”

            “You stayed for her?” Acxa asks, still struggling to understand, not sure why comprehension seems so far away.

            “And for me. I needed a bit of stability, you see. After all that wandering I needed some time to be ‘home’, wherever home happened to be.”

            “Huh,” is all Acxa can think to say. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a home like that.”  She hasn’t, she knows she hasn’t. Maybe she did with her mother but she doesn’t think so. She doesn’t remember anything like that, at least.

            “It can take a while to find one. Or make one. You’ve got to put a bit of elbow grease and a dash of luck into it. Just like everything else!” Coran chirps. The creases around his eyes are kind and smiling, though. “I’m sure you’ll find it someday.”

            Acxa shrugs and looks away, that’s enough of feelings for now.

            Luckily in the next instant, Coran manages to, with a cry of triumph, liberate the light bulb from the ceiling and then, nearly as quickly, almost drop it on the ground. He catches it, but it’s a close thing and they’re too distracted with the mishap to continue to prod old bruises.

            But Acxa thinks about it. Home. Stability. Wandering the world. Being adrift. She feels like she’s been adrift a very long time. She’d like to come to shore.

…

            “No.”

            “Come on, Keith,” Acxa doesn’t pout so much as glare. “I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.” She’s trying to be reasonable, trying to keep her tone even and business-like, but a little bit of wheedling creeps in at the end of the sentence.

            “I’m not forging your foster parents’ signatures,” Keith sighs.

            “Don’t be Professor McGonagall in _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,_ ” she scolds.

            “First off, do I look like Dame Maggie Smith? No. Second, this is a field trip, not blanket permission to visit Hogsmede unsupervised while a suspected murderer is on the loose.”

            “So the stakes are lower already!” Acxa argues.

            “THIRD OF ALL,” Keith interjects, “I’m not your parent or guardian. Also, no.”

            “I’m not asking you to pretend to be my parent or guardian,” Acxa rolls her eyes because clearly Keith is the stupid one here, “I’m asking you to forge their signature.”

            “No,” Keith says flatly.

            “I should have asked Lance,” she mutters under her breath. 

            “Yeah, he’s a pushover,” Keith agrees easily enough.

            “Seriously!” she throws her hands up in defeat. “You seemed more likely to help me break rules than to enforce them,” she frowns at him like he’s massively disappointed her with his law-abiding habits.

            “I am,” Keith agrees, “And I forged my mom’s signature a ton when I was your age.”

            Acxa opens her mouth as if this is a point in her favor.

            “But I’m not doing anything behind your actual gaurdians’ backs. If they don’t know where you are, there’ll be hell to pay, and I don’t want to be liable for that shit.”

            “Liable?” Acxa protests, “It’s not like we’re going anywhere dangerous!”

            “You’re going on a nature hike in shit weather.”

            “It’s supposed to get sunny.”

            “Weather reports are bullshit, it’s still winter, you never know what could happen. Ask the fosters. Practice your puppy eyes first. Ask Lance to teach you, he’s decent at them.”

            “UGH,” Acxa huffs in oddly age-appropriate disgust and flops back against the backseat of Keith’s car.

            Keith lets her sulk for a few moments. He’s weirdly pleased to see her like this – acting like an actual twelve year old kid, slightly bratty, a little to smart, liable to think she’s invincible and always right. When they first met getting a few words from her was like pulling teeth – now he’s getting dramatic sighs and Harry Potter references. It feels like a win.

            “So, where to?” Keith asks, “Theatre or Community Center?”

            “Theatre I guess,” she grumbles.

            “You guess or you know?” Keith asks, feeling a weird twist of vindictive pleasure at being able to sling one of Shiro’s annoying dad-isms at someone else for a change.

            “I know, ok? Theatre,” a pause, “please.”

            “Cool, manners. Nice.” Keith’s tone is dry but he’s already gearing up to tell Lance all about this. Lance’ll be so jealous. Keith got the first major sulk _and_ a dramatic sigh.

            Yay, milestones.

            Adulthood is a lot like unlocking achievements in a video game except they’re stuff like a coupon for 15% off bath towels instead of literally anything exciting at all.

            Adulthood is fucking weird.

…

            In hindsight, Keith probably should have seen what happens next coming.

…

            He stops by the school, expecting Acxa to be sullenly slouching on the curb, waiting for him to ferry her to Lance and Coran, who are garuanteed to be more sympathetic to her plight and have the advantage of not being Keith’s subordinates, so he can’t tell them to stop feeding into her sulk.

            Acxa is not there.

            Keith can’t say he’s immediately frantic. _Concerned,_ maybe. Mildly concerned. Or wary. Ok, so he’s pretty sure this is just a sign that she’s gotten into trouble again and will be kept after to chat with her teacher or the principal, depending on the severity of the infraction. And seeing as technically Keith isn’t even on her approved parent/guardian list in the office he really doesn’t have any reason, right, or authority to go searching through the school for her.

            That’s not going to stop him, when, ten minutes into circling the parking lot waiting for her to emerge, the majority of the students have cleared out and he spots Narti all alone on the curb. A ball of ice settles in the pit of his stomach at the sight of Acxa’s best friend wringing her hands around her cane, purple scarf fluttering in the icy breeze, slush puddling around her boots.

            He parks immediately. He doesn’t remember a ton about crossing the parking lot and pickup lane, but he has a sneaking suspicion an old New York City habit or two emerged as he dashed through milling mini vans. He may have slapped a Honda’s roof and barked “I’M WALKIN’ HERE” just like he would have barked at a taxi back in the city when it bumped his hip with its front fender.

            It’s a blur.

            He’s in front of Narti then, her breath coming in as sharp and shallow puffs of steamy air in front of her. “Narti, it’s Keith, Acxa’s friend.”

            She nods.

            “Where’s Acxa? Why are you out here alone?”

            She holds out a little purple-gloved hand to him and after an awkward moment, he takes it in his. She squeezes his much larger hand tightly in hers. “I-I-I h-h-h-eard,” she stutters.

            “Heard what?”

            “A-a-axca-a-a. Mmmissing.”

            “Missing?” the word is punched out of the center of Keith’s chest.

            Narti shakes her head, tears of frustration beading in the corners of her sightless eyes.

            “Okay,” Keith kneels down, trying desperately to channel Lance here. What would his husband do if he were here? How would he talk to this child? How would he calm her when he felt like a sandstorm was tearing his chest up from the inside out, stealing all the breath from his lungs and the strength from his spine. How did Shiro survive this? How did Shiro survive _him_ , Keith, when things were at their worst in New York? “I’m going to ask you some yes or no questions, will that be easier? You can just nod or shake your head, ok?”

            Narti nods and squeezes his hands.

            “Okay, that’s good,” his knees are in the slush, his jeans are soaked, there’s a bit of gravel digging into his skin and he can’t care, not right now, “Did you go on the field trip today?”

            Narti shakes her head. No.

            “Did Acxa?”

            Narti nods. Yes.

            “Did she forge her gaurdians’ signatures on the permission slip?”

            Narti shakes her head, then makes a hand wiggle as if to say ‘kind of’. Acxa must have tried to forge the signature and it hadn’t turned out very well. And she only had one copy of the permission slip. She wouldn’t have wanted to use it right away and risk getting caught.

            “Did she sneak onto the bus?” It was surprisingly easy to slip into a large group of other students, especially if you were small, quiet, and not particularly tall, short, or noticeable in any way. Someone would have noticed she wasn’t in the group that stayed behind fairly quickly, but if she timed a ‘bathroom break’ just right, she could slip onto the bus without anyone any the wiser.

            A nod. Yes.

            Shit.

            Sooner or later (probably sooner) someone at the school would have figured out Acxa wasn’t where she was supposed to be. If Acxa was clever she would have pulled the classic trick where she tells multiple authority figures she’ll be in different places, with different authority figures and then left them to puzzle it out for themselves.

            But the adults aren’t stupid. They’re paid to keep track of kids all day. If a child goes missing, they go on red alert.

            “They figured it out, didn’t they?”

            Another nod. Keith is so good at this guessing game, and he kind of hates it.

            “And they sent her back?”

            Another nod.

            “This field trip was a nature hike thing out in one of the parks, right?”

            Narti furrows her brows before nodding, like she had to think about it. Keith feels a small pang of sympathy for her in his chest. She wouldn’t have been able to go with her class. Not without a designated TA to help her navigate the woods; and the school district didn’t have the money or manpower to supply that.

            A picture is taking shape in Keith’s head and he’s not liking it at all. “They sent her back to the ranger station or science center or wherever, but she slipped away from the adult who was supposed to escort her, didn’t she? And tried to rejoin the group.”

            Narti nods a little, then shrugs, as if to say she thinks he’s right but has no way to prove it.

            “Okay, okay, thank you, Narti,” he goes to stand, pauses, chilly trickles of water from the slush soaking through his pant legs and sliding down his calves, “Do you need anything? Are you okay out here?”

            She nods, “Okay,” the word is soft, barely a whisper, but she doesn’t stutter when she says it.

            “Okay.”

            “Find Axca-a-a. Please,” she mumbles.

            “I’ll do what I can.”

            Keith drops her hands and goes to see if he can speak to someone with any kind of authority.

…

            Not being Acxa’s guardian, he can’t claim to have any real right to be concerned about her safety and location, but he can tell them that she’s a regular student volunteer at his theatre after school and when she didn’t arrive on time he grew concerned. From there it’s easy to join the group of community volunteers heading out to the woods to search for her.

            He’s in his car, ready to head out to the park when he remembers he has a job and a husband and some calls to make. He hits Lance’s number, makes sure the phone’s on speakerphone, and then tosses it onto his dashboard so his hands are free to drive. Of course it goes to voicemail because the _one time_ his husband isn’t glued to his phone is the time Keith actually really needs to talk to him.

            “Dammit, Lance,” he growls as Lance’s pre-recorded voice chirps its way through his answering machine message. After the beep he bites out, “Acxa snuck off to her field trip and got lost in the woods. I’m helping search. Call me.” He pauses and then says, “love you,” because he can’t hang up without saying it, it feels too harsh.

            He calls Lotor ( _ugh_ ) next. Because the world hates him, Lotor picks up after the first ring.

            “Yes? Lotor here.”

            “Lotor, I might be late to rehearsal. I might not be at rehearsal. We’ll see.”

            “ _Keith Kogane?_ Late to _rehearsal_? Whatever is the world coming to?”

            Keith grinds his teeth and does not yell at his coworker. “Acxa is lost in the woods. I’m helping search for her.”

            Silence. Keith wonders if Lotor just plain hung up on him. Keith wonders if he might need to start looking for a new job soon. He doesn’t know where else he’d work here.  He wonders what Lance would say if he had to start communting an hour a day to get to work. He wonders if he’d even get other work if Lotor decides to blacken his name locally.

            Just as his thoughts are beginning to spiral and his teeth are beginning to creak from the amount of pressure he’s putting on his dental work, Lotor speaks.

            “Rehearsal is cancelled due to a family emergency. Where do we need to meet you?”

            Keith chokes. “ _What_.”

            Lotor huffs a very suprerior British sigh, “Where. Do. We. Need. To. Meet. You.”

            “We? Who is ‘we’ here?” Keith snaps.

            “Myself and your bloody gang of former interns. They’d skin me alive if I left that little girl wandering around where she could get hurt. Or freeze. I expect Ezor will drag Zethrid along as well. They’re both rather fond of the little brat.”

            “And you’re coming. To look for Acxa. With me.”

            “ _Yes._ I realize such magnamity is a rare thing from me, but it shouldn’t be enough to knock every brain cell loose from your hard head.”

            Keith sighs and decides not to argue. He doesn’t know what the fuck Lotor thinks he’s doing here, but he’ll let him help if he’s in helpful mood.

            “The science center. We’re meeting up there. She snuck along on a field trip she wasn’t supposed to be on and got separated from the group.”

            “Very well. I’ll send out the email about rehearsal and rally the troops.”

            “Ok,” Keith barely gets out before Lotor hangs up.

…

            Keith and his band of volunteers are swiftly divided up into pairs, given an area to cover and a walkie-talkie to communicate with the organizers since cell coverage is spotty in the forest. Tony and Farid are sent off in one direction, Alyssa and Adela another after quiet greetings to Keith. Ezor, light and lithe as only a dancer can be, bounces over to throw her arms around Keith and squeeze to his utter shock. “What,” he coughs out as her surprisingly strong arms try their best to crush his spine.

“That little girl is a good kid and we’re gonna help you find her,” Ezor tells him, surprisingly solemnly, before releasing him as quickly as she embraced him.

Zethrid holds a hand out to her girlfriend and Ezor laces their fingers together before they head off together.

Keith, to his chagrin, is stuck with Lotor.

Lotor takes a walkie and a flashlight. “Let’s be off then.”

Keith nods grimly and leads the way into the woods. The light is turning blue around the edges and the wind bites a bit deeper than it did half an hour ago.

Keith doesn’t want Acxa out in this weather. She’s just a kid. She’s just _his_ kid. Never mind that he’s not her parent and/or guardian and can’t sign a stupid permission slip or pick her up from the nurse’s office at school, she’s his responsibility.

History repeats itself, he guesses.

Shiro took on an angry, sarcastic, loner child and turned him into a semi-functional adult.  Keith supposes it must be his turn now or something.

He just wishes he knew where his angry, sarcastic, loner child was.

Lotor’s shoes crunch on the snow beside him. There’s something strange about having him there. Keith wishes he were Lance instead. But Lance hasn’t called back and, if his phone is to be believed, hasn’t gotten a chance to read the texts Keith sent when he got to the parking lot yet.

            “Why are you here?” Keith asks into the silence. He isn’t chatty by nature, and he suspects Lotor isn’t either, but he finds he has to know. He needs to understand why Lotor of all people is here with him now, looking for Acxa.

            “Because I choose to be,” Lotor says simply, tone cold.

            Keith simply snorts and says nothing.

            Lotor sighs, apparently disappointed in Keith’s lack of a verbal response. “I like your…pint-sized sidekick well enough. And I would be…unhappy. Were some harm to come to her simply because she is young an impetous.”

            Keith supposes that’s the closest thing he’ll get to an explanation from Lotor. They continue to walk in silence.

…

            Lance doesn’t answer his phone when it rings because one of the bathrooms is flooding at the community center. He’s up to his ankles in water from _very_ questionable sources and if it’s not the plumbers he doesn’t really care. As it’s his personal cell and not one of the business landlines he figures it’s probably not the plumbers.

            By the time he finishes dealing with the deluge, he’s peeled his socks and shoes off to toast his feet on the space heater in Coran’s office and is actively daydreaming about going home, crawling under a blanket on the couch with both his cats and making sad puppy eyes at Keith until his husband figures out dinner for them. Of course, that’s when he checks his phone and his heart nearly stops.

**From: Best of Husbands**

ACXA MISSING

SEARCHING IN PARK

INTERNS W/ ME

NO CELL SERVICE

WILL TXT W/ UPDATES

            And after that there’s absolutely _nothing._ Lance checks his voicemail. One message from Keith, equally sparse on details.

            Lance tries texting. No dice, it bounces back as ‘unable to send’. Keith must be out of service range.

            That’s about when he yells for Coran.

…

            It’s getting darker and colder and Keith hates everything about this whole day. He’s pissed. He hasn’t been this pissed a long fucking time and it settles like familiar fire under his skin. He wants to tear apart the world to find his child. He wants to grab her and shake her and demand to know what the hell she was thinking.

            He wants to break something in his hands. He wants to put everything back together because it feels like it’s all turning to sand inside him. He’s a cliff face in the desert, layers of silt and sediment slowly peeled away by time and wind until only a barren crag remains.

            He’s grinding his teeth again. His dentist will not be pleased.

            “I will not give you false platitudes,” Lotor tells him, “But she is unlikely to die in these woods. It will not get cold enough for hypothermia barring a freak weather event, and there will not be many vicious animals so close to civilization. But she could easily be injured or ill.”

            Keith wants to say something sarcastic but there’s something soothing about Lotor’s acidic personality, the ruthless way his cultured voice lays out the facts. Keith has never been one for false hope either.

            “I don’t like snow,” Keith says in lieu of responding to Lotor’s words, “I grew up in the desert. Sand gets everywhere but at least it doesn’t melt and leave you with wet socks.”

            Lotor stares at him.

            “What?” Keith snaps.

            “You never do as I expect.”

            Keith bites back on a childish and spiteful _‘good, then’_ and just shrugs instead.

            “I once attempted to run away, when I was a child,” Lotor says reflectively, nearly startling Keith into a snowdrift.

            Keith doesn’t know what to say. So he says nothing.

            Lotor doesn’t seem to mind. He’s gone contemplative, which is a strange look on him. “My father was a hard man to know.  I believe, in a different world, perhaps, we could have been very close. But my mother was very ill for most of my life, and losing her by inches made him…distant and…difficult.”

            Keith shrugs, “I just met my dad a year ago. It’s been weird.”

            Lotor snorts, “There you are again, surprising me. Your whole band of misfits never fails seems to surprise.”

            Keith thinks that Lotor doesn’t have a lot of room to talk considering his own eccentricities, but he doesn’t say anything.

            They tramp through crunching snow for a few quiet minutes.

            “My mother suffered from early-onset dementia,” Lotor says unexpectedly, perhaps feeling compelled to share in some way, “Most days she didn’t recognize me towards the end.”

            “My mother spent fifteen years hunting for proof aliens existed.”

            Lotor makes a sound between a huff and a snort. “My mother was a scientist as well. A chemist. I was a surprise for her, later in life. Unplanned. I wonder what we could have discovered together. Ah, well.”

            “Why are you telling me any of this?”

            “I know you won’t tell anyone.”

            “Ah.” He’s right, of course. Even before the other man said anything, Keith had known he’d never share Lotor’s secrets. He knew too well the kinds of things you carried lodged like a peach pit against the soft tissue of your heart. The kinds of stories that can only be shared in dark, slushy woods in bitter, cold twilights.

           Keith regards Lotor. The regal sweep of his profile, the chilly distance in his eyes as they sweep over the frozen landscape. There’s something strangely similar about the two of them, Keith decides. Except the distance Lotor puts between himself and the world is frost where Keith’s was fire and stone. And no one’s snuck in under Lotor’s skin yet, not the way so many people have burrowed under Keith’s and forced him to smooth out his sharp edges or risk cutting them on his corners.

            Keith feels an odd sort of sympathy for Lotor in that moment.

            He’s still a prat, of course.

            But.

            Keith thinks he might understand the other man a little better now.

            There’s a small noise off to the side and they both spin in place, flashlights bouncing wildly off of treeths and shrubbery. It comes again and they focus their lights together on one particularly noisy patch of brush.

            “I do believe that’s our missing child,” Lotor says dryly, “Or a bear come to kill us all.”

            “Most bears don’t attack humans unless provoked. They really don’t give a fuck about us unless we’re shooting them or separating them from their young,” Keith shoots back before he entirely registers the words. “Wait, Acxa? ACXA?”

He calls her name a few more times and the brush rattles more forcefully, followed by a thin, “…Keith…?”

Keith takes off running because he’s completely forgotten every bit of wildnerness safety his mother and Shiro hammered into his skull. He trips, feet tangle with a cluster of roots, and, already falling, ducks his shoulder and turns it into a rather bumpy shoulder-roll, coming up with both feet on the ground and running. He finds himself tumble-scrambling down a slope in a similar fashion, although remaining largely on his feet for the remainder of the journey. Lotor thuds along behind him, swearing in an icy English accent about the foolishness of idiot stage managers.

Keith hits the bottom of the hillside and staggers a little, head swiveling, Lotor still halfway down the hill and still swearing the air blue around him.

“Acxa?” Keith calls.

“Keith?” a whispery voice answers.

He spins, flashlight beam panning over even more wintery landscape, catching on a small dark shape limping towards him –

And suddenly his arms are full of preteen girl and he nearly drops his flashlight.

Acxa is shaking with sharp little shivers and her face, when she pulls it away from his coat, is covered in thin red scratches with an angry red scab on her chin.

“I fell,” she says, and there’s so much in those two words that Keith knows they need to unpack, and he’s still very, very angry with her for doing something so _goddamn stupid_ in the first place, but right now he’s just glad she’s all in one piece, that he’ll take the snot and tears and scabs.

“Are you hurt?” he asks instead of shaking her and demanding to know ‘what the actual _hell_ were you thinking?’.

She sniffles, nods, and explains, “I fell down a hill or something and I scraped my face and I think I twisted my ankle. Lots of bruises too. I fell a long way.”

“Can you walk?”

“Slowly.” She grits her teeth as she says it. Just standing on it must hurt.

“Okay, I’m going to pick you up, is that ok?”

She blinks and nods mutely.

Keith kneels, says, “I’m goin to lift you by your legs, brace your hands on my shoulder.”

“Okay,” she says softly.

He gets an arm around her thighs and she wraps skinny but strong arms around his neck. Once she’s off the ground he walks her through how to scramble around so she’s perched more on his back than his hip. She’s light – lighter than Lance, definitely, and Keith can lift Lance without much difficulty, but if Keith’s going to get back up that slope without smacking into a low-hanging tree branch, he’s going to need his hands free.

Lotor’s arrived, a bright flash of light showing off just how dishelved his ridiculous hair has become on the descent. “Don’t bloody run off like that, what would I tell your husband and your pack of idiot children if I lost you. ‘oh yes, your beloved Kogane was felled by a _tree_?’ Honestly.”

“My nearest and dearest call me Keith,” he drawls, “Now help us find our way back up.”

            Lotor makes an inelegant sound of disgust. “Lovely. More hiking.”

            “You’re the one who cancelled rehearsal for this.”

            Lotor huffs and turns away, flashlight already lighting their way back.

…

            Lance is pacing a metaphorical furrow into the parking lot asphalt when they emerge from the science center, Coran watching fretfully from his car. The second he sees Acxa and her bedraggled escort he and Coran both make wordless sounds of joy, relief, and, well Keith doesn’t have the emotional range to define half those feelings.

            They descend upon the theatre contingent with a whoop and nearly squeeze the life out of all of them, even Lotor, who looks vaguely disturbed by all this affection being flung around willy-nilly.

            Of course, Ezor spots the hug fest and immediately squeals “GROUP HUG!” and hauls Zethrid and herself into the muddle.

            Keith takes an elbow to the kidney, Tony gets the wind knocked out of him, Lotor’s hair becomes even more of a lost cause, and Acxa looks more than a little shell-shocked by the whole event.

            Chaos momentarily reigns.

            Of course, Lance has the lecture to end all lectures, combined with an increasingly absurd and nonsensical tongue-lashing from Coran to really drive home just how worried they all were about Acxa and just how she is NEVER EVER TO DO ANYTHING EVER AGAIN.

            Keith is honeslty a little impressed.

            After all the affection and hugs and admonishments are handed out the actual authorities take over and all too soon Acxa is hered away from her bedraggled honor guard to be driven back to her actual gaurdians, who, Keith notes with a bit of disgust, are not present, still being at work. According to the teacher, neither picked up their phones when they were called.

            Keith catches Lance’s eye and raises a brow at that. Lance presses his lips together grimly.

            Ezor demands yet another group hug before Acxa is ushered away and Farid demands at least a million selfies starring Acxa and the ex-interns to document her “heroic rescue”. When Lotor protests that it was actually Keith and he who did any real rescuing, Keith finds himself subjected to the indignity of selfies with _Lotor,_ Acxa, his former interns and Farid’s selfie stick.

            Lance definitely photographed the entire process and Keith may need to conviently hurl his husband’s phone into the nearest large body of water for safety.

            And just as suddenly as the parking lot was full of people, it’s swiftly emptied. The interns work out a carpool system, Ezor whisks Zethrid and a rather wilted Lotor off for celebratory drinks. The teachers disperse, and Coran returns to the community center.

            Only Keith and Lance are left.

            Lance hooks his fingers loosely through Keith’s and leans his forehead against Keith’s shoulder. He exhales a shakey breath, half-laugh, half-sob. “Jesus Christ that was terrifying.”

            “Yeah.” Keith’s eyes are still locked on the place where the car carrying Acxa turned out of the parking lot.

            Lance squeezes their fingers together. “Hey. Babe, you still in there?”

            Keith nods. “Yeah. I’m here.”

            Lance hums assent, but Keith can still feel a pair of worried eyes locked on his face.

            “Hey, Lance,” Keith says, strangely tentative.

            “Yeah?”

            “You’re still a registered foster parent, right?”

            Lance blinks; Keith can feel his gaze boring into him. “Yeah, I mean, yes, I am. Why?”

            Keith’s teeth lock together momentarily and he has to focus on relaxing his jaw. “Acxa’s foster parents didn’t answer the phone when she was lost in the woods.”

            “To be fair, neither did I,” Lance says, a touch of guilt in his voice.

            “They didn’t drop everything and come here,” Keith says, turning his head for the first time so their eyes meet, “You did.”

            “A lot of people did,” Lance prevaricates.

            “Including you,” Keith says evenly, “I know you. You dropped everything and ran for the car as soon as you got the message.”

            “I yelled for Coran first,” Lance mumbles, “His hands weren’t shaking. He was a better pick to drive.”

            Keith’s lips turn up at the corners and he leans forward to press a light kiss to Lance’s forehead. “You dropped everything. To come here. And look for the kid.”

            “Our kid,” Lance mutters mulishly, eyes suddenly widening and cutting up to look at Keith, a bolt of fear flashing across his face. Fear of what, Keith doesn’t know.

            “Our kid,” Keith agrees.

            Something complicated twists and turns through Lance’s eyes and Keith figures he’s surprised him again, but isn’t sure how. Keith thinks of Lotor’s comments in the woods and wonders when he became so mysterious and prone to surprising people.

            Then Lance smiles and it’s like the sun’s come out.

            But Keith’s focused on the mission. “So what do I need to do? How do we get to bring her home?”

            Lance grins and says, “I’ll make some calls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will almost definitely be an epilogue to this fic, never fear.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next Christmas is different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!
> 
> I had hoped to have this up before Christmas, but that didn't happen lol. To answer everyone's questions, as of right now I plan to keep writing this series while working on the original version project, either because I'm ambitious or insane, the jury's still out. As of right now the original novel is pretty unique in its own right so this series will probably become a Voltron AU of the novel. No, this story is not the end of this series, I'm already writing a one-shot about Jack, Acxa, and Pidge trying to buy Keith a birthday gift. Yes, I love you all and appreciate every ounce of support you've given me!!! :) 
> 
> Fun fact, this series now has over 900 bookmarks, which utterly astonishes me and fills me with warm fuzzy feelings. I appreciate every bookmark, every comment, every kudos. Thank you friends <3

**Chapter 5**

The next Christmas is different. The setting is the same – Lance’s mothers’ house is just as crowded and chaotic and full tinsel and tiny terrors. Lance’s nephew Davie is a year older and a year louder. Keith still doesn’t know what to do around a toddler. It’s still hilarious.  What makes it even better is Jack sitting beside him, with a matching look of fascinated horror as Keith helplessly nods along to Davie’s enthusiastic babble.

            “Is it still too soon to say that I’m a little relieved to have skipped this phase?” Jack mutters out of the corner of her mouth.

            “I can’t judge, I skipped this phase too,” Keith mutters back before nodding and saying, voice stilted and awkward, “YES, that is a very shiny bow. No, you can’t – don’t – LANCE, HE’S TRYING TO PUT A BOW ON THE DOG.”

            Lance tears himself away from gossiping with his youngest sisters to assess the scene.

            “Keithy-kins, you’re thirty years old. Figure it out.”

            Keith’s look of utter betrayed indignation mixed with Jack’s guffaws make everything worth it. Even when Davie falls off of the dog’s back – still clutching the bow – and begins to wail.

            “Not it!” calls a pair of voices from the kitchen and Lance turns to see Carla and Acxa’s grinning faces as they pointedly put fingers on their noses like they’re all in third grade and nose-goes is still a valid way to get out of dealing with a screaming toddler.

            Lance’s heart melts a little (a lot, his vital organs have turned to sludgey Frosty the Snowman mush) at the sight of Acxa and Lala trading conspiratorial glances like they’ve known each other forever instead of just having met a few months ago.

            Davie’s mother soon rescues him from the injustice of a universe cruel enough to have gravity (and rescues their eardrums from his complaints) and order is restored. Lala is dragged into conversation by Andie and Sofi and Lance slips away to check in with Acxa.

            He slings a careful arm around her shoulders – she’s still short for her age, and slight, but she’s gained an inch or two in height since coming to stay with them permanently. It turns out when you don’t actively want to avoid the other people in the house, you eat meals more frequently. She and Keith had a hair-dye adventure in early December; something about Acxa not wanting to go to a dance at her middle school, Keith insisting she participate in ‘meaningless social rituals’ anyway, and her saying she’d only go if she could dye her hair blue. Keith, in the interest of showing her how much he wasn’t bothered by her demand, did her one better and bought blue, teal, and purple hair dye. And then insisted on dying his own hair too. Just to prove a point. They both dyed their hair in the master bathroom (Lance had a lot to say about that when he came home to his bathroom looking like the aftermath of a muppet murder scene). Keith went subtle (as subtle as BRIGHT BLUE PARTY HAIR can get) and only did a single thick streak of purple fading into blue, then teal. Lance had to grudgingly later that it actually framed his face quite nicely.

            Acxa dyed her whole head. Between the hair, the shiny purple combat boots Keith bought her for her birthday (Lance’s boy is a pushover and Lance is pretty sure Keith’s going to spoil his mini-me utterly rotten by the time she’s eighteen) and the silver pleather jacket she borrowed from Allura, she looked like a Lost Boy if Peter Pan was set in a Hot Topic.

            Keith drew the line at letting her put on eyeliner (“You’ll poke your eye out or look like a raccoon, let Shiro teach you how to do it when you’re old enough for decent hand-eye coordination”) but Lance let her borrow some body glitter from last year’s Pride and by the time they were done she looked like a punk rock pixie. Maybe Keith’s not the only one who’s a pushover.

            She went to the dance, drank punch, hung out with Narti, and declared the whole event “Decent, but undersupervised. Terry and Travis got into a fight in the parking lot and I had to break it up. Boys are stupid.” She’d wavered at that and added, “Except you two. You’re stupid in a good way.” And smiled like that somehow made up for her calling them stupid.

            Keith had laughed and Lance dragged her in for a hug and over her head they resolved to volunteer to chaperone more school events. Clearly they were understaffed.

            In the present, surrounded by Christmas cheer, Lance tugs on a strand of Acxa’s slightly faded neon hair.

            “How’re you holding up?”

            Acxa swats his hand away and leans into his side. “Fine.”

            “If you need to go be quiet somewhere and read, that’s ok.”

            “I’m fine,” she stubbornly insists; little jaw firm.

            “You know, Keith had to go hide somewhere for a while his first Thanksgiving here. And that was before Davie was born, and Jack showed up. There’s no shame in needing a moment.”

            She turns her head and hides her face in his side. He tightens his arm around her narrow shoulders.

            “Acxa? Kiddo?” he says softly.

            She sniffs and he drops down to a crouch immediately, glad they’re off to the side so her back is to a wall and his body can shield her from curious gazes.

            “Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on, kiddo?”

            She sniffs again, cheeks blotchy red and pink. “I just…hic…I just don’t get it,” she hiccups out.

            “Don’t get what, Pumpkin?” Lance is a fan of pet names. Always has been. He nicknamed his sister ‘Lala’ when they were tiny tots. He calls Keith ‘babe’ casually and ‘baby’ when things are too much. He’s still working out all the little affectionate things he can call his kid.

            “How to…how to…to…to…I’ve never had this before. It’s so much.”

            “Is it too much? Do you need to go home? Keith and I’ll go with you.”

            “No!” she blurts, then flushes dark red, “No, I’m, I’m happy. I’m so happy. I don’t…I want to stay. I want to keep all of this. I never wanted to keep a foster family before. It’s a lot.”

            Lance stares at her. He wishes Keith were here. He’d understand what to do or say. Or, maybe not. Maybe this is above Keith’s paygrade. Maybe there’s a reason Acxa sought Lance out. The thought that she might want him for something, for comfort, that she might feel the warm fuzzies he feels when he looks at their little family, warms something in his melty Frosty the snowman chest.

            “Do you know how hard Keith and I worked to get you?” Lance asks, “Social Services has a lot of stupid paperwork and hoops to jump through. Keith was so mad,” Lance chuckles wetly and Acxa follows suit, “He’d come home and stomp around, muttering ‘why can’t we just bring her home?’. Every day. I think he stared down the social worker every single time he had to sign something. It took for-flipping-ever.” And it was actually really lucky in a twisted way that Acxa had gotten lost in the woods and Keith was the one to find her. That went a long way in convincing Social Services that her current placement wasn’t working and that Keith was a fit guardian.

            “And I had to learn all the ways teenage punk Keith got arrested.”

            Acxa snorts, “They’re all lame.”

            “Come on! He told _you_? Before _me_?” Lance whines theatrically, a grin on his lips. “And it took a really, really long time to get everything in order.”

            And then they’d had to sit Acxa down and ask her, very seriously, if she wanted them as foster parents. And Keith had been stony and stubborn and Lance had been a nervous wreck but she’d cried and said yes and they moved her into their house and into their lives. Nothing was perfect, not by a long shot. It’s never easy to fit into another person’s existence. Especially when you have Lance’s insecurities and Keith and Acxa’s truckload of mom/dad/authority issues.

            But now they were here. And Keith and his dad were sitting next to each other on the couch like they were really, truly a family, and Lance’s mama was dancing with his mom in their kitchen, and his sisters and their spouses and children were filling the house with life and love. And Lance was trying to convince their twelve year old punk rock pixie that she was theirs and they were hers.

            “But we did it. Because we wanted you to be part of our family. We want you here. We love you. You’re our kid.”

            Acxa sniffs wetly, “Will you, could you…can you adopt me?”

            Lance wraps her in a tight hug, “Of course, that’s the next step.”

            “Thank you,” she whispers, clutching his shoulders “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

…

            Over on the couch, Jack nudges Keith’s arm and tilts his head toward an out of the way corner where Lance was carefully hugging a shaking Acxa and she was clinging like a limpet right back.

            “I think you got yourself a kid,” Jack says quietly.

            “No shit,” Keith shakes his head, “Of course she’s ours.”

            “Yeah, but I think she’s picked you two. She wants in on this whole family thing.”

            Keith eyes his father and tries to read between the lines. “Yeah?  Yeah, that’s…that’s good.” He finally manages awkwardly.

            Jack clears his throat and looks away, grey stormcloud eyes unreadable. “What are you going to have her call you?”   
            “Huh?” Keith asks.

            Jack clears his throat again, “Is she going to call you ‘dad’ or ‘Keith’ or what?”

            Keith shrugs, he hadn’t thought of this. “Is it that big a deal?”

            Jack eyes him, “Yeah, yeah, it is. Names have meaning. What we call ourselves and each other matters.”

            Keith thinks of Lance calling him ‘babe’ and ‘baby’ and a million other spur of the moment ridiculous pet names. He thinks of Shiro calling him ‘kiddo’ and his mom’s calloused hand in his hair as she said “Hang on, babydoll, we’re going for a ride.”

            (He thinks of dying his hair with Acxa, of splashing blue dye all over Lance’s pristine bathroom, and remembers his mom, dying her hair purple in truck stop bathrooms and flashing him a sparkling smile saying “sometimes you’ve got to shake things up, sometimes you need to not recognize the face in the mirror”)

            “Do you want me to call you dad?” Keith asks, what could be understanding flickering like distant lighting in the depths of his brain.

            Jack leans away, looks away, distancing himself from the conversation with his entire body, “It’s up to you, whatever works,” he says gruffly, the twang in his voice rough with something.

            Keith eyes him, thinks about the word ‘Dad’. He’s never had a dad before. He’s had a Shiro, and Shirogane, he supposes. Lance doesn’t have a dad. He calls Lance’s moms by their first names, or sometimes ‘Mama’ or ‘Ma’. He can’t manage to call anyone ‘Mom’. That’s something best left to his own mother.

            “I’ve never had a dad before,” he admits.

            “Kind of new territory for me too.” Jack shrugs.

            “Dad.” Keith half-mouths, half-says the word.

            “I mean, Lance calls me ‘Texas Darth Vader’ so whatever you come up with can’t be worse,” Jack tried to joke.

            Keith chokes on a snort, “What? He called you that to your face?”

            “Is it really better if he’s saying it behind my back?” Jack asks.

            Keith chokes on some choice words and just shakes his head. “Gah.”

            “Really? I expected more profanity.”

            “Lance says I have to cut back on the swearing in front of children. Since we have a real one now and not just my ex-interns.”

            Jack snorts, “I feel like that ship’s sailed.”

            “Yeah, I know.” Keith shakes his head and they sit in companionable silence for a few breaths.

            Keith presses his lips together and thinks and remembers and decides to try something.

            “Dad,” he says. Out loud, deliberate. Hard on the consonants. Unmistakeable.

            Jack twitches but doesn’t respond.

            Keith elbows his father, “Hey, _Dad_.”

            Jack looks at him and there’s a thirty years of lost time in his eyes. He’d given Keith a painting for Christmas. It was gorgeous, a range of desert mountains and if you looked at them just right they became a lioness in reponse. The title was written on the back in dark, bold letters: ‘The Huntress at Rest’.

            Jack’s stormcloud gaze softens into something close to the night sky just minutes before dawn. He slings an arm around Keith’s shoulders and squeezes. “Thank you, son.”

            “You’d better fake a really good illness next time I want to get out of seeing Shiro’s stupid family,” Keith grumbles.

            Jack’s chuckle rumbles through his ribcage. “You’d better come up with something real clever that doesn’t make me sound old when you’re telling your kid what to call me.”

            Keith grins.

…

            They’re setting the table for dinner and Keith has his hands full of green bean casserole (casseroles are still depressing food in Keith’s book and he has no idea who the fuck thought they were festive). Acxa sidles up beside him and leans against his side like a cat asking for attention.

            “Casseroles are fucking depressing food,” Keith mutters.

            “WATCH YOUR DAMN LANGUAGE, KID!” his father – _Dad_ – hollers from the kitchen and both Acxa and Keith snicker.

            “So Lance says it’s ok – ” Acxa begins and Keith shoots her a wary look.

            “Lance says a lot of stuff is ok that is definitely not ok so I hope this is going in an ‘actually ok’ direction.” Keith says.

            “Lance says it’s ok for you to adopt me,” Acxa blurts out, digging and elbow in his ribs for his interruption.

            “Well yeah, duh, of course that’s ok,” Keith snorts, setting down the casserole and looking at Acxa. “Do you want us to adopt you?”

            “Yes.”

            There’s a star going supernova in Keith’s chest. It’s cool. “Great. We’ll start on the paperwork after Christmas.”

            Acxa smiles one of her small, shy smiles, and wraps her arms around his waist, burying her face in his stomach. “Lance says you guys love me.”

            “Lance is really into stating the obvious, then,” Keith says dryly, hugging his kid back, “And my Dad says you’d better come up with something cool to call him. He doesn’t want to be any old grandpa.”

            “I don’t want to be old unless it gets me free stuff!” Jack yells from the kitchen, making Lance’s mama cackle.

            “See?” Keith says archly.

            Acxa snorts, “YOU GET A FREE GRANDCHILD, YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY!” she shouts back and Jack roars with laughter.

            “What do you want me to call you?” Acxa asks very seriously as she detaches from the hug, helping Keith lay out silverware.

            “Whatever you want, chickadee,” Keith says, the endearment slipping out, another one of the things his mother used to call him when she was feeling warm and fond and connected to the whole world.

            Acxa looks thoughtful, “I think I’ll stick with Keith and Lance for now. We’ll see,” she raises her voice, “BUT JACK’S GONNA BE GRANDPAPPY.”

            “I’m from Texas, darlin’,” he hollers back, “That’s not the most embaressing thing we’ve called our grandpas by a long shot.”

            “I’LL WORK ON IT.” She challenges back and turns to Keith with a conspiratorial grin. 

Lance comes out of the kitchen shouting “MAKE WAY FOR THE TURKEY!” at just the right moment and they move out of the way with laughter and full hearts.

Keith catches his husband’s eye and they share small, secret smiles. They’ll be just fine going forward.

They’re a family, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The theme song for this chapter is 'The Heart is a Muscle' by Gang of Youths.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Miracle Mile' by the Cold War Kids. 
> 
> Books discussed in this fic are real, I've read them. Some of Acxa's experience of sixth grade English is shamelessly stolen from my own childhood. We read ‘Where the Red Fern Grows’ (I was one of the only people unsurprised by the ending - although I did not spoil it for the class), and I did try to read The Mists of Avalon in sixth grade but my mom made me stop before I finished it. I was okay with that, the sex bits were weird to me. But I, like Acxa, did leave it out on the top of my desk and did silently dare my teacher to comment. He didn’t, but he clearly disapproved.  
> This pretty much sums up my relationship with authority at that point.
> 
> Anyway, 'Dragon Rider' was a childhood fave and I think I read 'His Majesty's Dragon' in middle school or high school but would have loved it as a kid. I was mostly unimpressed with 'Where the Red Fern Grows' but that could have been more general dissatisfaction with sixth grade English class.


End file.
